Gone With the World
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Summary: Alternate Universe. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. Implausible medical situations. SLASH. NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, suspend your disbelief.
1. Chapter 1

Gone With the World

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Part I

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature.

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

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He was hungry.

The world had set before him a frightening certainty, that eventually, after he had eaten food long enough (if he could find it often enough), to grow old enough to care less about getting even older (dying was far more on his mind than anything else), one random day he would crawl into a corner and die.

But worse than hunger was the cold. He blew warm breath onto fingers curled and puckered from the icy air, but kept walking. It was an unusual gate, a lop-sided dot-and-go-one made even more hitching by three supports, only two of them made of flesh and blood -- minus a little flesh taken from him a long time ago.

A long time was anyone's interpretation. Time was subjective or non-existent, depending on one's point of view. Centuries could have passed without him noticing. Cold and hunger had reduce his vision of the world, shrunk it to smaller things such as _Hungry-need-food_ and _When that stranger finally dies, I get his coat_. Central things overbearing anything else that would presume to interrupt his day. His internal clock that used to insist time mattered had stopped cold a while back.

In its' heartless tease of warm colors, yellow to orange to red, the sun said it was going down and everything in his tiny world would grow colder still, so he needed to find shelter fast. If he could find a place hidden enough, and deep enough, maybe he could light a fire and have some warmth this night. Not having to shiver his way through ten hours of darkness was a sought after but not often obtained treat. A fire might draw attention, but was better than a lover. A lover was nice against goose-bumped flesh but could you trust him?

There was no bright side to any of it. In troubled times, cliche's do not apply. No matter how hungry anyone got, each remembered his last meal. Countless sleepless nights could pass without an apology, yet each could recall his last warm, rested breath, however long ago. If the mercury dropped to a new low and the cold seeped like ice-water into his very bones, a man could still remember a recent night where he had felt even colder.

No matter how bad things became, and lately bad was the only direction on the compass, every man could cast his broken mind back and catch the elusive feeling of hope that once was. Comforting memories were, all of them, chained up tight in the reservoir of useless recollections. All men had them and all men ignored them as best they could because they existed as a torment to all. Happy hours, friends and family were forever beyond their reach because, in the current state of the planet, good experiences emerged somewhere between rarely and never.

On his rough two-by-two piece of wood called into service as a mans' cane, a strip of cloth wound and tied around the tip to serve both as a handle and as a protection from painful slivers, a tall, gaunt man slowly crept down littered concrete steps in the dusk, hoping for more than hope. Hoping for warmth. Needing it badly. His leg hurt all the time now, but he hardly noticed it against the ever present ache in his empty stomach.

Three days ago he had managed to catch a skinny dog. One or two wacks of his cane and it trembled once and lay still.

Less than two years ago the idea of killing a defenseless animal would never have entered his mind. But back then he had been well fed, warm and in charge of a important place with important people, he being the most disliked but the most valued.

Now he was wanted by all and lived lesser than most. It was a weird upside-down irony.

He would have no fire. Nothing presented itself that was combustible. The basement corner of just another abandoned and gutted building, was damp and cold but at least he was out of the rain. He ran a dry tongue over his lips, remember his meal of the dog and wishing he had it right now.

With a hand that had surprised him by how quickly he had mastered the art, he had drained the blood from and skinned the dog in under three minutes. Using the only weapon (other than the stick-cane), he owned, a small red locking knife, he had stripped the meat from the dogs back legs, and eaten that first. Once he had devoured the torso, the rest he cast away as far as he could throw it. The stringy and sour, but fresh meat, was still vivid in his mind. He'd survived two days on it.

As he wrapped his thick, ragged coat around him, one built for a much larger person and dreamed of his last dinner of raw, sinewy canine, his mind went to where it always did.

The man with the brown eyes. The man who had been a friend and whom he had not seen for over two years, not since he'd been forced to run, in a manner of speaking, for his life and freedom. Brown Eyes had been left behind.

For the thousandth time, Crippled man let his mind sift through the details. Brown Eyes had not even been around when the worst of the outbreak had occurred. He had been evacuated to Manhattan to ride out the riots, the pillaging, the looting, the mass killings.

Blue eyed people were barred. Soon they had been gathered up and immunizations tried with no success. Then mass gassings to rid the world of what it only saw as carriers of a disease that could mutate at any time and spread to those brown eyed ones snuggled safely across the water. The connecting bridges and gondola-works had been dynamited. All the boats in the harbor sunk.

All so the ones with blue eyes couldn't cross over. When it was all said and done, nearly every female human being on the planet was dead and almost every blue eyed male in existence was dying.

He had no idea why he had survived. Some sort of natural immunity maybe. He wondered if there were many others like himself? In two years, he had encountered three other blue eyes, all hunted and on the run like him. Rarely could he spare the time or energy to differentiate between the browns and the blues and they why-for's. Most of his day was spent on the move, trying to find food, shelter or safety from the rape gangs, the Traders or the Men in White.

Crippled man was in a serious minority. He didn't even use his own name anymore. No one cared what your name was when all you were was something to own or use, when all everything came down to was whether you had something someone else wanted, or whether you were strong enough to struggle through another miserable day.

Or whether your eyes were blue.

The man who used to be a doctor, the man who used to be Gregory House found a dark corner of the basement with a good view of the two exits (in case he needed to make a hasty one), curled himself into a shivering ball and tried to sleep away the chilling darkness.

XXX

The tall man with the gaunt look of a frugal eater, narrowed his brown eyes to his partner. "How far??"

The broad-shouldered man with the equally dark, alert eyes and chocolate skin, "We had to go five miles today."

Pretty eyes looked to the other of the men, a younger fellow with high cheek bones and sun-kissed features. He dropped the bag he had carried in, an old fashioned, double handled, plastic weave-type with a picture of a puppy on its side.

Pretty picked it up and looked inside. "Only," he counted, "nine cans of food?" _And nothing else. _

The taller man of the two locked and bolted the door to their high-rise apartment, then the two of them pushed a heavy chest of drawers in front of it. "We have to move."

As much as he hated the thought, Pretty agreed. But moving was risky. Out in the open was vulnerable, but to stay where they were meant starvation. With every nearby food store empty, moving was a necessity. They would hardly be able to stay fed on pigeons and stray dogs.

"Hey, Wil' – " Chocolate said.

Pretty didn't really like hearing his own name, or even a part of it. He was only Wilson, anymore, to the man that invaded his already disturbing dreams, marking them with longing - a far worse nightmare. Films flickered by in his sleep in the absence of someone who _ought_ to be there. Always his heart ached with it.

To his lovers and survivors of time, Baby of the fine Asian eyes (who was no baby at twenty-four but the youngest of the three) and - simply enough - Chocolate of the lovely black skin, he was Pretty Eyes, or Pretty for short. The made-up monikers were easier on everyone's souls. The old days where anyone was someone were over.

Pretty, no longer Oncologist James Wilson, turned back. The place only had two rooms, it wasn't necessary to actually stop. He would be able to hear just as easily in the a-joining room -- the kitchen. But he had been raised to be polite. "Hm?

"Pretty, " Chocolate corrected himself. "I know it'll be a feast." Chocolate motioned for Baby to help him gather together the essentials they would need to take with them. Other than the pot bellied stove, which they would wheel along on a make-shift cart, only what they could carry would be packed. That included weapons, food, extra clothing, their meager supply of first aid materials and an old, much thumbed map of the city.

Using a sharp hunting knife, Pretty started hacking open the cans of mystery dinner.

XXX

Pretty traveled with Chocolate and, several hundred yards behind them, Baby brought up the rear. For safety it was best that way. In case the first two were attacked, the one would get away. One case the one, the two.

Baby often remarked that if they only had a fourth, he wouldn't have to bring up the rear on his own. But they all knew he was the faster of the three, and the quickest with a knife. Pretty had learned some fighting moves from the other two, but he mostly knew healing and they dared not ever risk him traveling alone just for the old-fashioned notion of fairness. Chocolate understood healing as well, the things that went bump in the brain, but he was the strongest of them all and set himself up as the leader. Since they depended on his strength and skill with a knife, it was a level exchange, though nothing was fair in love or war. Not anymore. The death and slow decay of human society assured them of it.

Seven miles in broad daylight -- they had been lucky to get so far without a single encounter of the marauding human kind. Chocolate, who had scouted far ahead while Baby and Pretty waited in a dark stairwell just off street level, returned with news they had walked and wished over for a day.

"I found a good hole. Fifteen floors up," (to discourage unwelcome visitors), "one stairway," (one access that could be blocked by all manner of wire, junk and anything else they could find to, again, discourage access), "metal doors," (impossible to wack a hole in or burn down), "four intact locks," (that they would crown with a cross-bar), "and only two windows with blinds." (to blot out their night fire). "Plus a garbage chute." (used for two things: disposing of garbage (which in their frugal life of little choice they made very little of), and directing the smoke from their night or cooking fires up and, unobservably, out). Chocolate would climb to the top and fashion a hole and piping leading to the outside, ensuring the smoke never built up and choked them.

Baby asked. "Food?" He was always the hungriest of the three.

Chocolate smiled a little at their youngest, most supple member of their life-triad. "Plenty of canned food left in the other holes. Enough for months."

"What about water?" Pretty was sick of rationing and hand-washes. They all needed a real bath.

"Lots. And we can siphon more." Chocolate assured him.

Pretty was terrible glad. He was the thinnest of the three. He ate as well as the other two but lately his appetite had been missing. Lots of things in his life were missing. Like clean water and soap. Clothes without patches and music.

Music he missed most of all. Especially the piano playing he had been privileged enough to hear all those years. Funny, he thought as he trudged up fifteen flights with his burden of goods and wares, how he had not appreciated it so much at the time.

But there was work ahead and he refused to feel sorry for himself. Chocolate had lost people and places and so had Baby. Any man who still lived was only alive because he had lucked out on one thing (his eye color) and lost everything else.

"Let's get this stove up." Chocolate said. That was he and Babys' burden and fifteen stories stared down at them, mocking their man-weak, but only, choice. If you wanted something to go up, you had to carry it yourself. No more working elevators when there was no more working electricity.

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Crippled Man watched the three struggling along with their possessions and pot-bellied stove on wheels. If he wasn't so hungry, the sight would be funny enough to make him laugh he thought. More importantly, there was probably food in the bags they carried. Laughing had no place when you hadn't eaten properly for weeks.

He could take none of them. But he might be able to steal if their attention wavered long enough. If one dropped his package and walked far enough away to do . . he didn't concern himself with what as long as he did the walking away.

But these three were not careless men. His stomach growled, wishing they were stupider so it could eat.

He could just ask, he supposed, but he had been caught once before after asking for food. After months of being raped and given hardly anything enough to fill his stomach for his trouble, he had escaped. That man had not wanted a companion, just a place to shove and shove his lonely penis. He hadn't even cared that he was shoving it into a man of blue eyes.

He would follow these three until they reached their destination, if it wasn't too far, and try to steal the food there. If he was lucky, they might even have some 'shine. He had learned to almost ignore the pain in his leg. Almost was able to completely hide his limp and thus his weakness. But 'shine would nudge _almost_ to _completely_ for a few hours.

He followed in the shadows, dreaming of bitter liquid sleeps.

XXX

Pretty and his companions heated water, poured it into the white basin which Pretty had scrubbed with a soap and sponge they had miraculously found plenty of in their new hole. Chocolate had coined the phrase over a year ago when they had found each other and made their first home together. "Hole." Chocolate had said. "I'm never going to call anything in this lousy world a home." Anyplace you had to be ready and willing to leave at a moments notice wasn't a home, he said. Why get attached?

No one disputed it because they all understood. Each of them had lost a home and each of them grieved over it in their own way.

But this night, after warm food, each man took his turn washing up in the glorious four inches of lukewarm water, scrubbing off many days dirt. It was wonderful to feel fresh and clean. There was only a small, child-sized bed, but Baby pulled the mattress off and lay it beside the box spring. Then he removed the wooden feet from that and they had a bed just big enough for three. A bit cramped, but blankets were theirs for the taking from a small closet in the narrow hallway. Luxury had entered their sparse lives for a time. The hole was, used to be, a one bedroom apartment belonging to someone who would never return home so it was theirs now, for as long as it was safe. That was the way of the world.

Chocolate decided a right proper celebration was due and he encouraged his companions to bed. Soon they were making love in that desperate, hungry fashion people did who had been starved of it for weeks.

Pretty kissed Chocolate, running his hands appreciatively over his dark, muscled back, loving the way Chocolate was driving his cock into him with hard, urgent thrusts, taking what he wanted and grunting in his pleasure of it. Chocolate looked down on him with large, dark eyes, almost angry in his want. "I'm going to fuck you so goddamn hard." He loved to say. And he kept his word. Pretty delighted in Chocolates demands, and said so by the tiny cries of pleasure that escaped his lips whenever Chocolate's large penis struck his prostate. He grabbed Chocolate's head, the curly black hair soft, so soft, and kissed him, sticking his tongue inside, wanting him so much, so deeply. "Harder." He urged. "Please -- fuck – fuck me _harder."_

Baby was lying beside Pretty, stealing kisses and urging Prettys soft fist around his own erection, his youth demanding less a lovers touch and more a rough, fast stroking of his cock. His honey-shade body shivered in the contrast between Pretty warm body and the cool air of the room, confusing his senses. His narrow, Asian beautiful eyes closed as he came, shooting all over Pretty and Chocolate, making sure he was as much a part of their shared ardor as possible.

Chocolate was definitely the dominant of the three and usually lead where the love-making would go. Either kisses and gentle caressing that lasted for hours or impatient, demanding hard-core fucking that met only his, and perhaps their, immediate physical cravings.

Tonight it was a little of both. No one minded.

Chocolate obliged Pretty and drove his cock inside him over and over, feeling the clench of Prettys' muscles and the sweet, tight heat of him. Faster and faster he pumped madly, his climax building like a long, slow climb up a mountain. A few final merciless thrusts and he came with a long, low grunt.

His cock finally emptied out but Chocolate let himself soften inside Pretty only withdrawing after a moment, then rolling, exhausted and sweaty, to his side of the bed. Baby leaned over from his side and kissed Chocolate on the lips. "'Nite."

Chocolate reached over and pinched his youthful ass. Pretty, lying in the middle, accepted Babys quick warm kiss and mumbled goodnight to him. In minutes, Baby was asleep. Pretty was sometimes jealous of how he could do that.

Pretty got to his feet, trying not to disturb his sleeping lovers and found a rag to clean himself and his tired companions off. He cleaned Baby off while he drifted deeper into sleep, Pretty chiding the young man under his breath for having left the cleaning of himself to someone else. Chocolate took care of his own sticky mess and, not long after, was snoring softly.

Finally Pretty lay back, pulled the covers up around them all and tried to sleep. His mind drifted away, as it did every night, to the memory of the faint chords of a piano and the faded picture of strong hands moving across black and white keys. Eyes staring intently at him from the dark that smiled, wept or frowned. Eyes of life in a time that had passed away. Eyes that no longer lived in a world where only the brown-eyed were immune and still survived.

But each night Pretty tried to remember the dream mans' colors. The man of the bright, sky eyes. Impossible eyes. Beautiful eyes.

Beautiful blue.

XXX

Part II ASAP!


	2. Chapter 2

Part IIf

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature.

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**Gone With the World is a little creepy (so I have been told via private message), & a departure from my usual menu, but then, that's the point.  
Serving up endless variations on a hurt/comfort theme can get tedious and a huge change every so often is refreshing to my writers soul.  
I hope those who don't mind creepy will stick with it, if only to satisfy their curiosity about this off ramp idea.  
GWTW was inspired by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu (QueenZulu) which is a story about an unlikely character getting impossibly pregnant! There, I've given you a hint.**_

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Hunger gnawed at Cripple. Soon it would have the upper hand and thrust him into a bold and foolish attempt to find or steal almost anything at all that would serve as food. Being that hungry scared him because it was dangerous.

In the memory of his old life, which was not fading but turning into variations of grey on grey, his doctor mind whispered to him _You have almost no subcutaneous fat left. You are, in the medical sense of the word, starving_.

Many of the details of his past were still there, but some of the faces had gone missing, some of the names and the reasons behind their words that rattled on and on in his head to keep him company, were now toneless, less distinct. Cripple had already accepted that maybe he had gone a little mad with loneliness and starvation. He knew by the feel of his ribs just beneath the surface and the flatness of his mid-section that he was on the edge of just about too thin to go another day on empty.

His doctor mind spotted the symptoms easily but his poor Cripple-on-the-run stark reality had no treatment.

So he followed the three daylight travelers with the pot-bellied stove and stopped when they stopped, walked when they walked, hid when they nervously looked behind them. Cripple was a whole block back but, because of the pot-bellied stove on wheels, they were slow enough for him. If not for the salvation of the black metal thing he would have lost them hours ago.

His leg, so painful all the time now, protested this journey. But stomach held sway over leg. Leg didn't know _it_ needed to eat too.

The sky had gone charcoal and threatened a down pour but he didn't want to lose his next meal just because of a little rain (though he knew it would be a _lot_ of rain). He was already chilled because it was . . .he wasn't certain anymore. Maybe mid October? Once upon a time ghouls and demons would have soon arisen and begged for sweets at every door. Piles and piles of sweets and salties would have been handed out by the hand fulls without a passing thought to their excess.

His mouth watered at the image of caramel corn, slabs of chocolate and nuts and apples coated in tasty red goo.

His dinner stopped ahead and he slipped into a doorway where the door was plywood fixed to its dwelling with many nails. A sign read: _STAY AWAY! We have attack dogs and guns with plenty of ammunition. If you enter, YOU WILL DIE. _There was blood spattered on the door frame. Or red paint. No one used welcome mats.

No one cared or tried to help. Everyone was staggering under the burden of bare survival. There was no extra food, sympathy or love to be had. If you wanted what someone else had, you traded something better for it. If you had anything to trade.

When next he peeked around the entrance-way, dinner had disappeared. The black metal thing was still there, sitting dead on the crumbling asphalt. No one pushed or pulled it.

Cripple wondered if there was anything inside dead metal stove. It would take him another minute to get near it to open and examine its stomach.

But it was risky. Between where he was and where black stove lay, there was no cover or easy escape route. If they returned while he was within sight . . .

Hunger snarled at him to hurry the hell up.

Cripple moved as fast as painful leg allowed and no other people appeared. With his stomach griping at his slowness, he opened the belly of the dead stove. Inside were three cans of food.

He quickly stuffed them into his over-sized coat and made as fast a get-a-way as he could, quickly hop-jogging with his cane-stick back down the way he had come. He didn't look back to keep his fear blind. If the three people who pushed the stove returned and found their cans gone, they might look for the thief. If they did, they would catch him easily.

Probably, though, they would not give chase. To lose a thing that held fire over a few cans of food. . . . or to lose the food over a fire maker -- it all depended on whether you were freezing or starving.

Cripple hurried a few more blocks just to put distance between himself and the people who would now have returned and be cursing and swearing at the nameless theif and their loss.

But he wasn't concerned about them. In fact they, as soon as he was far enough and safe enough, had passed from his mind altogether.

Cripple felt the weight of the food cans in his coat with a feeling almost like glee. He was a kid coming home from the corner store when there were corners stores and homes to return to. He would eat one can per day. Not enough meals to put on weight but just enough to gain the strength to search for more food.

Cripple grinned over his stolen goods and about how fast and easily he had gotten them.

He would eat tonight.

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But his presence in the garbage littered streets had not been missed by other sets of hungry, watchful eyes. A band of four, relatively fat men who fed off the lives of the discarded or hunted, even the valuable, began following him as he had followed the stove-people. Cripple had become something someone else wanted. Many things were hunted, stolen, traded for, murdered over, in the New World. Food was thieved. Goods, even people, for all variety of purpose, were traded. Some with the understanding of sex to be had. Some not.

A box of powdered milk located in some forgotten corner of an already looted food store might purchase something with a little more nutrition. A person might be traded for a gun with bullets, a really good knife and a box of canned spam. The person then pressed into service of work or sex or both.

Others, not needing a slave and not craving a daily raping of another human being, would trade a person for his meat. Some people either didn't have the resources or health to hunt for deer, dog or bird, or had gotten the taste of roasted man into their system and liked it.

Some traded for the roasting, some for what they could get for a good side of man meat.

Four men saw a cripple hop-frogging along their alleyway and a life of ease flashed before their eyes. Ease for a while. "Awfully skinny." One said.

"Old." Said another.

The third observed, "Moves well, for a cripple."

The fourth. "Think he's a Blue Eye?"

The first one, the leader, shrugged. "If he is, he won't be for long. More like Rib-eye." He chuckled softly at his own joke.

They moved off together, following Cripple very carefully at a distance. He was easy prey. "What do you think we can get for him?" Number four asked the leader.

"Hmm. He's street-flesh to the bone."

Cripple might have agreed with him. He had dined on the worst of the worst fare that still could be called food - stringy dog and crow meat, blossoms, (what-ever still bloomed in a place where they were looked upon not as esthetically pleasing to the eye but as a food source), packages happened upon while scavenging of brittle vegetables that had been turned to jerky by time, while quenching his thirst on questionable water.

"We won't get as much as the others but even at half the weight of the rest, we'll get something for him." He, the leader, stringy grey hair over weathered face and angry, half crazy eyes, nodded once in the general direction of their intent. "Grab 'im."

XXX

"We need medical supplies." Pretty catalogued their dwindling supply. It took but a few seconds. "We have no alcohol, three bandages, and our last srynge snapped two weeks ago when Baby thought it would make a good tooth pick."

Chocolate raised perturbed eyebrows at Babys' sometimes youthful foolishness, but The Asians' sleek build made him fast with a knife and so a valuable second when they hunted or scavenged. Baby was also pleasing to look at, with his wide cheek bones and narrow, upswept eyes, plus a hungry, sweet creature in the sack.

Baby was a bit wild when he and Pretty had come across him on one of their less than successful scavenging trips several months after meeting up and deciding, for their own safety, to stay together.

Once upon a time he and Pretty had been colleagues working together in a prestigious life. In their shared life now, on the fringe of civilization, whatever knowledge you brought to the cause of staying alive was valued, but other than that, status had no meaning. And companions of preferable choice were almost non-existent.

Baby had been, once upon a pre-viral apocalypse, a college athlete in pre-law. His use as a lawyer was now left untapped. But his strength as a second tough and quick hunter, was. Eventually, other than his impulsive and sometimes risky behavior, they had learned to love him. Chocolate had been reminded of another impulsive and risky, though not youthful, person they had once known. So they welcomed the third to their narrow, unhappy state that passed for a life, quickly re-Christening him _Baby_. Old names like James, Eric and Tan, had been quickly discarded in a life where you had no family and no sir-name to perpetuate.

If you didn't want to be alone, with a few exceptions, you took in almost any Brown eye.

Pretty knew medical supplies were one of the hardest things to come by. After a year the city had been heavily looted, even though the population had dropped by more than two-thirds. That still left seven or eight thousand people, many grouped together in marauding gangs who murdered and took rather than bartered, to exist on whatever resources were left. With no electricity or regular shipments of food coming in from anywhere, the world was re-civilizing and re-erecting itself at a lethargic pace.

The Government was, as far as they understood, still in place somewhere. But they had no televison and no newspapers. Whatever news the President deemed important enough to declare, it was dropped via propeller plane (indicating the Government still had access to fuel) in simply printed up notices that would drift down from the sky to any people still curious enough to read it. Most just gathered them up for burning.

Like most broken societies where law was a memory, crime had quickly replaced negotiation or trade. Trade still existed if you knew where to look. "We'll have to go to the Market." Chocolate stated. It was a pleasant sounding word evoking memories of Sunday spent looking at fresh vegetables and home-made spice racks where genteel people strolled, picking out this and that over-priced item.

Now, it was nothing to anticipate. Only the courageous or desperate went to barter for medical supplies, weapons, food, hooch. Even people. Chocolate pulled up one of the floor boards and withdrew the only tradable item they had - an automatic hand-held firearm. He thrust it into a small brown canvas bag.

"Are you sure you can get what we need for that?" Pretty asked. Chocolate had found it in a collectable flags store, stuffed into a drawer filled to bursting with receipts. There were no bullets.

"I hope. In the old days someone always wanted a gun. I don't see why that would have changed."

Pretty bit his lip and nodded. He hated to see them go, but they had to have the medical stuff. Even if they had no immediate cause to use it, a day would come where they surely would. Especially in a world that didn't give a damn about you but you. "When?"

"A couple days. We want to stock up on wood first."Chocolate jerked his head to Baby. "Come on." Over the next forty-eight hours, he and Baby would cut apart and chop up every piece of safely combustible material left on the fifteen floor. And then start on the sixteenth.

XXX

The only benefit from being chained from an overhead iron beam is the weight of his body was off his leg. The old injury of shriveled muscle and damaged nerves didn't hurt quite so much.

His wrists, though, were killing him. Cripple had shivered through a miserable night of cold draft and, since they had stripped him of his clothes, his hands and feet were numb. Only his wrists felt anything, that being terrific joint ache and skin scraped raw from the nylon ropes his captors had made secure half a day ago.

Cripple didn't much care about any of it. Decisions were taken away now, and the best outcome from his current predicament he could think of was death.

Three of the four Traders entered the dank concrete enclosure of what used to be the first level of a parking garage. There were still some cars parked here and there coated in dust and leaves. Broken windows and seat covers torn out gave evidence that their use had dramatically altered since gasoline was no longer available to the general - and mostly degenerate - populace. What used to carry professionals and families to the park, the movies, the grocery store, now were empty hulks to be looted and stripped, whatever remaining gas in their tanks already siphoned, and their oil pans drained for use as cooking fuel.

"It's cold." The shortest and smelliest Trader said. His hair had not yet turned all grey, but he had lost his dentures a while back and lisped his speech through hardened gums. "Business could be slow this month."

"They'll come." The tallest and craziest eyed of them answered. He was the unspoken leader. He decided which month they ought to trade which goods and why. He had managed a huge department store in the Old Life, but stocks and sales no longer fluctuated with Christmas, Easter or Halloween, now things were decided based on winter, rain, spreading cold or flu infections, the scarcity or abundance of the ever dwindling deer herds wandering in from the countryside or the dog packs that hunted them.

And as long as they were meat to be had, many people did not discriminate on what species.

Short man ran a bored eye over the two human beings he had helped trussing up and hanging by ropes from the old water pipe. "I think the fat one's dead."

Tall man brought his own bulk to its feet and walked near enough to the captive in question, poking the chubby middle aged man with a sharp stick. The prisoner appeared like he might have been a shoe salesman or a restaurant maitre-Dee'. "He's still breathing." Then he pointed his stick at Cripple. "This one might be a little tough." He shrugged. Anyone hungry enough would trade for him.

"What do you think we should ask for them?"

"Wait'll we see what comes." He said, tired of the useless conversation. "Shut up now. I'm napping."

XXX

Baby had stepped on a splinter sticking up out of the worn wood floor. Swiftly Pretty had made him sit down so he could pick it out, wash and dry the wound, wrapping one of their last bandages around it. Prompt treatment of any wound was quickly addressed in a world with no quick solutions. Without antibiotics, an neglected cut could let in bacteria, and bacteria left to rage into an infection could become a death sentence.

Baby stood up and took a few halting steps around the room, his right foot touching the floor with some hesitation. Pretty was sharply reminded of another limp he had not witnessed in some years and his heart tightened with a pang of sorrow. To his remorse, he could hardly recall the face anymore of the man who belonged to the limp. Almost stuttering, "Two p-pairs of socks, and wear the r-rubber boots."

His throat ached with holding back all speech about missing his friend. It was easier not to talk about him. You couldn't get back the dead.

Chocolate, tying on his own laces on some well worn and patched leather shoes, gave Pretty a concerned look. "You okay?" He asked, mistaking the unhappy pinch in Prettys' features for worry over their trip to Market. "We won't be gone more than a day."

Pretty nodded, sitting back on the rooms' one stuffed, heavily spoiled chair. "I know. " He said. Part of the pinch was about that.

Chocolate tightened his lace and walked over to him, standing close and looking down on the man whom he'd fortuitously found and with which he had shortly thereafter become lovers. Pretty had eased the agony of losing everything.

"Wil'." He said, knowing Pretty, like most people he supposed, didn't like to hear his own name anymore. "We'll be careful." He leaned down and kissed his lips very tenderly. "Unless the place is burning down, don't open that door for any reason."

Pretty nodded. It was the unspoken rule that Chocolate had just spoken. "I know. I won't."

Baby limped over, kissed him and followed Chocolate out the door, Pretty slipping the heavy two by six inner crossbar down on the iron arms they had pounded into place soon after moving in.

When the tiny specks that were Chocolate and Baby emerged onto the street fifteen floors below, Petty watched from the one window until they were too small to see anymore, then curled up to read a book he had read three times before. The only novel he had room enough to carry with him from their old lodgings. Books were a luxury, their uses ranged from fire starter to toilet-paper. Only if those things were already in good supply did a book become something to _read_.

By the time they had abandoned the old dwelling, Pretty had managed to accumulate fourteen books of every description. Cheap romance novels, several Readers' Digests and even one book on astronomy. The thin Digests they'd had brought to utilize as their primary function - starting fires. The thick, hard bound astronomy book had been too heavy to carry with them.

The book he read now, a Nancy Norman novel about the end of the world coming via malevolent inter-dimensional alien machines that could blip in and out of "phase", sucking whatever was in the vicinity with them, Pretty had grown tired of, like so many things.

As a disaster story replete with references to human conscience and old fashioned ideals of neighborly love, it was so unrealistic as to be ridiculous.

XXX

The tiny sharp ends of duck feathers poked out from every quilted square of the Traders' puffy winter coat. The fabric that had once been grey was now almost black with filth. The old mans' straggly white hair hung unkempt from his freckled scalp and his feet were encased in the biggest fake fur boots Chocolate had ever seen. Chocolate approached with long knife at his side but clearly visible.

Traders pretended to be every bodies' friend but everyone knew better. All strangers were enemies until proven otherwise. The benefit of the doubt you only gave to those you knew would never give you cause to doubt. "Med' stuff." Chocolate said without a greeting.

"And you have . . .?" Trader asked. He had met his first customer of the day at the lighted entrance to his place of business. A business he moved at the close of day and set up entirely elsewhere. Everyone was always on the move in this life.

"A hand-gun."

Traders' eyes lit up. "What kind? Is it automatic? Does it fire -"

Chocolate didn't know anything about it, but he wasn't going to tell him that. "-Do you want it or not?"

Trader stared for a moment, but Chocolate knew how valuable an item it was even without bullets. No one would know whether or not it was loaded and a lot can be easily gained by pointing an empty gun at someone who assumed it was. Even as Chocolate understood that, he knew the moment he'd found it that they would trade it away. A long, sharp, deadly knife was about as threatening and primitive as he wanted to become.

He had not lost absolutely everything in the viral Armageddon. His conscience had come through.

"Yes. Yes." Trader said, anxious to get his hands on it. "Where is it?"

"Uh uh." Chocolate gestured back to the street. "My associates have it." He emphasized the plural. "I taker a look at what you have and we make the trade at street level under the sweet light of day."

Trader frowned, annoyed that the dark man wasn't as stupid as he had hoped. "Fine." He waved him into the cool shadow of his "store". "Hungry? Horny? We carry more than bandages here."

Chocolate followed him down, keeping an extra tight grip on his knife and following a distance out of reach of the Traders' by reputation double-crossing arms.

"No. All we want is medical stuff." Chocolate repeated.

Trader waved him to examine the two poor souls he had roped from an overhead iron bar. Three other men squatted on blankets on the concrete, playing cards and smoking what smelled to Chocolate like skunk-hide. Cheap weed. Almost everybody grew it so there was no demand for it anymore and so no market anywhere for its trade.

Chocolate's eyes grew used to the dim interior and fell upon the detail of the Traders' prisoners. As bad as he might feel for the men, an attempt at rescue was not only stupid, but impossible. Selfless acts were a luxury of the rich and well fed and, ironically, nobody ever got to that state by being selfless. "I said I'm not interested in-"

Chocolates' eye fell upon the longer of the two bodies hanging by his wrists, the toes of his feet just touching the cold parking garage floor. He was either dead or unconscious and he swayed, rotating ever so slightly to his left until Chocolate could see it clearly.

A long, white scar on his right thigh over a dip in the invaded flesh. Missing muscle. Chocolate kept his head about him. It might be a coincidence. It could be dirt or a brand or a stranger. It could be anyone at all.

Not him. He was dead along with almost every other Blue eye in the world.

But then, the relevant, possibly applicable word was _almost. _Even the news people, back then when the televisions and radios still worked, had frequently used that particular modifier.

Chocolate pretended to be impatient and a little bored with the Trader and his human sides of meat. For sure, these two hapless men were targeted for slaughter. If Trader was really serious about getting a good trade for their use as sex or work slaves, he would not have stripped them naked and all but hog-tied them from a water-pipe.

Chocolate, while pretending to examine his nails, made a closer inspection of the scarred white person. He was breathing. His hair was plastered to his head with oil and dirt, he had two weeks worth of salt and pepper beard, roughly trimmed close to his face as though he had taken a dull knife to it on occasion, and he was terribly thin. Because he was probably unconscious, his eyes were closed and Chocolate could not tell what color they were.

Everything else fit, though. He looked like . . .him. But it was difficult to be sure. Then his sharp eye fell upon, beneath the layer of dirt, a scar on the right side of his rib cage and, on the same side, a smaller one on his neck. Faint red marks from wounds given years ago by another man who liked guns. Guns that at that time, were loaded with lethal bullets.

The man with the limp he remembered, with whom he had spent many years working, learning, arguing, grudgingly growing to respect and almost like, was this man.

Looks like the world had taken everything from him also. Now it was asking for his life.

Chocolate didn't think he could walk away. not from this human in need. If he did and Pretty ever discovered it, he would never be forgiven. Pretty might even venture out to try some sort of half baked rescue himself and end up getting himself strung up and traded for a few gallons of gasoline or a box of cheap wine. Or for less savory purposes.

"Hey." Chocolate said to Trader, smiling it was a joke between kin. "You didn't say you had _white_ meat."

Trader slapped his thigh and hollered. "You want him? I can let you have him for some bullets along with that gun."

Chocolate bit his lip as if considering the offer. "No bullets. But We do have a nice pot bellied stove we don't need. Portable."

He knew a Trader would recognize the value of such an item. Anyone who had to keep on the move as they did would know it was a rare item. "When can you have it here?"

"Maybe a day."

"I still want the gun too."

Chocolate looked at the man who had been House. "The gun you can have today. I take him with me and bring you the stove day after tomorrow."

Trader huffed at what was obviously a lie. "Right. I'll never see you again. No deal."

Chocolate threw the old man his don't-piss-with-me face. "I send white meat home with one of my gang and he brings back the stove. In the meantime, you and me have a drink and get better acquainted, you know? business-men like."

Trader considered the offer. "You drive a hard bargain. But your meat's as good as any. Probably tastier." Trader let the joking slide. "Your other man doesn't show with my stove? Don't think we can't chop you up in a hungry minute -- my daddy was a butcher."

Chocolate answered with complete disbelief, "Sure he was. Deal?"

Trader signaled for two of his three card-playing companions to cut down the scarred man. "Wash him and wrap him up, boys." He turned a mouth full of weed stained teeth to his customer. "Shall we cut and wrap for you?"

Chocolate pretended to think about it for a few seconds. "No. We don't own a freezer."

Trader leered at Chocolate, his crinkling face implying that Chocolate wanted something more out of his purchase than a juicy cut of steak. "I imagine you'll be supplying the "sauce" for him yourself."

Chocolate ignored him and watched Traders' two helpers untie the ropes and let scarred man with rough, unkind hands, letting him all but collapse to the hard concrete. They threw a blanket on him and that appeared to be the extent of what Trader meant when he said "wash and wrap."

Chocolate hoped his old mentor would make it through the night. He shook his head at the shocking encounter of finding Gregory House. As routinely sad and miserable as their lives were in this new world, it still held some surprises.

After conferring with Baby his intentions, Chocolate returned to stand his ground for the night, keeping a suspicious eye on the traders (always a good idea. In this world, everybody lied) and hoping Baby would be all right with carrying House home alone. It would be a long, cold, tiring night. Funny. As much as Chocolate had not missed House in the old world, his heart beat faster with the knowledge that they would have another familiar face with them. Somehow, instead of finding a new home, some _home_ was finding them.

He felt good, too, that he was bringing home this incredible surprise. It would be nice to see Pretty smile again. Chocolate had forgotten what it looked like.

Scarred mans' eyes fluttered open for a few seconds, then closed again. He was awake but undoubtedly down to his last bite of strength. Chocolate thought he ought to communicate with the - with _his_ - old colleague somehow, assure him that he would soon be in no danger, that he was, in fact, being rescued. But what thing to say that House would understand and not question, but that the traders would ignore as meaningless?

He had it, whispering it as loudly as he dared while Baby hefted House onto his slim, powerful shoulders - "Jimmy needs a consult."

Did House hear him? Was he alive enough to comprehend? Chocolate thought he saw those blues open again and look at him with a spark of clarity, but it might have been an illusion. His mind probably thought he _needed_ the reassurance.

Hope often lied too.

XXX

Part III ASAP.

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	3. Chapter 3

Gone With the World

--

Part III

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature.

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**Gone With the World is a little creepy (so I have been told via private message), & a departure from my usual menu, but then, a big change is, for me, the point.  
I hope those who don't mind creepy will stick with it, if only to satisfy their curiosity about this off ramp idea. GWTW was inspired by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu **_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Baby hauled their new cripple up flight after flight. It was slow going. Finally, he picked him up, draped him across his strong back and made a quicker pace up the remaining nine floors, with plenty of rest breaks. "Now that I've hauled your ass to the fifteenth floor, Blue-eye," He muttered breathlessly, "don't nurse any designs on coming back down again, cause you'll be on your own."

Baby eased his heavy load to the floor. The cripple was woozy and cold and looked like he was about to give out altogether. "Oh, no, don't be winking out on me now." Baby pounded his fist on the apartment door. Waited, then pounded again with a rhythm of three taps, then one, then two, then three again.

After a moment, he heard Pretty lifting the heavy cross-bar and sliding back the many locks. Meanwhile, Baby had wrapped the cripple up in the stained blanket, struggling to throw him once again over his shoulder. When Pretty opened the steel door, "Present from chocolate." Baby said with little enthusiasm.

Pretty watched Baby carry the human baggage inside. All he could see peeking from the end of the rolled up blanket was a bit of disheveled hair. "What?"

Baby dumped his load on the floor, this time non too gently. "Chocolate traded our stove for _him._" He explained.

Pretty wondered if he had heard right. "Our _stove_? Is he crazy?"

"Maybe." Baby chugged some water from a blue plastic three gallon container and made a face. Boiling water always drove the taste out of it, leaving it flat. "He seemed to think this guy was more important." He took another swig, pausing for effect. "He's a Blue-eye."

Pretty stared down at the trussed up raga-muffin who smelled of pee and mildew. "If he's managed to stay alive this long, he's an Immune."

Baby nodded. "A genuine stinking IBE."

"We need a stove." Pretty wanted to help the poor slob but a working portable black iron pot belly was almost a one of a kind.

Baby shrugged. "Chocolate said you'd understand."

Pretty took the mans' feet. "Well, let's clean him up. Help me get him to the tub. We'll boil up some water, then you can haul the stove back to those bastard traders."

Baby left with the stove lashed to its wheeled wooden cart. It would take him almost the whole of the next day to get it down the stairs and the several miles to the Traders' temporary sales "booth".

Pretty took up a cracked pitcher and poured a generous amount of warm water over his unconscious house-guest. Then lathered in as much soap as he could get from a sliver of a bar of hand soap. Slowly the pleasant smell of Irish Spring replaced the pungent stink of human waste and damp, dirty wool blanket.

The mans' face was covered in a straggly beard that looked like it had been trimmed with a butter knife and his face was caked in grime.

Pretty lathered up, washed and scrubbed and slowly, from a starving, filthy wreck, a man emerged.

Something about him was . . .

Using his hands, Pretty rubbed vigorously up and down the fellows arms. Soaping up a strip of dish-towel, he applied it to his face, gently wiping in circular motions to coax the ground in dirt from his pores. Pretties arms were tiring. He wished the guy would wake up and -

- Pretties' hand slowed the lathering of the fine hair under his fingers, as its fibers surprised him by springing up into soft, wet curls. Flecks of grey mixed with brown. Fair coloring peeked from beneath caked on mud, filth was sluiced off a long, sloped neck to reveal . . .

Pretty stared at the small, white scar where once a wound had been. It couldn't . . .

He quickly moved to the boney chest and encouraged clean skin to show itself. There, slightly below and the right of his sternum, from the bullet that lodged in his posterior rib. _That_ scar. In the exact spot. The correct spot. Right where he. . .

Pretty, who had not taken a moment to really look at his visitor like one human being to another, now looked down at the mans dirt mottled legs.

Yes.

Yes, his right thigh had, . . .it was, . . there it was. Just like -

_"House?"_ Pretty took his face between his soapy hands, the skin almost pink now from the warmth and the soap and the being cared for that enticed the blood to return to the previously chilled, neglected surface. "My god."

Pretties' house guest opened his strangers eyes to reveal intimately familiar irises of that rarest of colors - blue. Not just any blue, but perfect earth-planet blue. Hits-you-in-the-gut-for-their-beauty blue.

Pretty had thought he had felt all the heart-ache he was going to feel for one life time. But this was a new kind of heartache. This was a fragile ache. An impossible thing coming home to you ache. The tender, tenuous, so unbelievable you're terrified it'll disappear before you have the chance to appreciate it throbbing ache.

He leaned into the tub and wrapped his arms around him, not caring about the soap or the scummy, grey water_. "House."_ Pretty kissed his head. "Hey." He said gently, to his just waking up, weary, bewildered, half starved friend. "You're home."

XXX

Chocolate spent a very cold night observing the comings and goings of the traders' pit of business. A group of three men bartered for the remaining side of human beef who had died during the night. Chocolate watched, controlling his stomach and his outrage as the men took knives and a large axe to the corpse, chopping him for easier transport to where-ever they were going. That would have been Houses' fate had Chocolate, as he had first decided, not to even glance the way of the two captured, men, hung up like pig ribs in a butcher shop window.

The smell of blood and body fluid was almost annihilating. Chocolate was growing alarmed at the looks being thrown his way by the traders when Baby showed up pushing the heavy, black stove over to the lead trader. Chocolate breathed a sigh of relief and they took their leave, chocolate bringing up the rear to keep an eye on the traders while they made good their exit.

"How is he?" Chocolate asked, referring to the newest member of their little group home.

Baby shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

Chocolate quickened his pace and Baby, easily the lighter on his feet of the two, kept up, both moving along at as easy lope.

By the time they had returned to their haven on the fifteen floor, which necessitated climbing over twisted shopping carts, broken lumber, beat-up old refrigerators they had taken the time to jam up in the lower part of the stair well to discourage visitors, it was dark again. Lifting the stove over and through all that alone must have been hell for Baby.

Pretty opened to their coded knock. Baby fetched himself water and food almost immediately. Chocolate was curious about their new room mate.

Pretty lead him to the one small bedroom. House was asleep, looking much better. Clean, at least.

"I gave him broth only." Pretty explained, easily falling back into the more comfortable role of healer instead of cook, cleaner, and all-around home-making handi-man. "He's so wasted, anything heavier might start a bowel reaction. He can't afford a bout of diarreah."

"Does he know where he is?"

Pretty stared down at his very thin, very much missed friend. "I'm not sure. He didn't say anything. He opened his eyes a few times, but he's still in a kind of mental shock."

Chocolate sighed. He was bone weary. "We're all still in a kind of shock." He began to shed his clothes. "I'm going to wipe down and sleep for a while."

Pretty nodded. Chocolate prepared a small basin with cold water and soap and cleaned himself up. Every day baths were an extravagance of time and oil heat best preserved for cooking and for boiling their drinking water.

Pretty watched with a tiny pang of jealousy as Chocolate lay down next to House and pulled the blankets up over them both. Pretty stomped on his reaction. "Try and keep him warm. That will help."

Chocolate sighed. He knew the treatment for shock and cold. "I was a doctor, too, Pretty." He mumbled and over the next few seconds, he fell asleep.

XXX

Baby asked Pretty in the next room, Baby shoveling food into his mouth and staring at Pretty with worried eyes. "What're we going to do with him?"

Pretty made himself weak tea with the left over boiled water. "He's staying, obviously. Other than that, I'm not sure."

House was a cripple. It limited the kind and amount of work he could do and one thing about survival on the perimeter of modern human existence, you had to pull your own weight or contribute in some way that benefitted the group. Pretty also knew one other thing. There was no way in hell on earth he was going to send House away. If he had to leave with it, so be it.

Pretty knew Chocolate welcomed House. He wouldn't have traded the stove for him if he didn't think he was worth it. Plus he liked to think that Chocolate had some affection for his old boss, that being an underlying reason for risking the rescue. He wasn't so sure how Baby felt about the whole thing. To promote what Pretty knew was only a good thing, "House was a brilliant doctor --"

"--we don't need another doctor." Baby said succinctly. "We need someone who can _do_ something."

Pretty nodded but understood the mind set of the young. Old meant useless. In this society, old and sick meant worse than useless, it meant a drain on resources. Pretty knew different of course. If there was any doctor who was a good doctor to have around, it was one who could diagnose you almost with a single look. "You don't know him." Pretty said then turned his head away, dropping the subject. He and Chocolate both loved Baby, but House was staying no matter what. "You'll see."

XXX

The next day, House was up and sitting in the soft chair. While Chocolate and Baby were exploring the roof and the lower floors, Pretty had scouted around in the adjacent abandoned apartments and discovered a couple of small, steel legged stools with plastic padding and hauled them down to their new home. They were not as comfortable as the stuffed chair but better than sitting on the floor. He also located a section of sponge mattress that would serve quite well as a sleeping pallet for House.

Pretty heard the name in his head and felt a little odd calling himself Pretty, though it had felt more and more like his proper name as time had gone by. Chocolate was what came to mind when he pictured Foreman in his mind. Baby had been "Baby" almost from the first day. He was younger, smoother, less mature. Baby - like a glove.

What would House be?

"how long have you been here, with them?" House asked, making Pretty jump. They were the first words out of his mouth, the still, mute person who had sat almost all day in the soft chair, with his head in one hand, rubbing his temple and staring at the floor.

Shell-shocked, Pretty thought, when no words of comfort or encouragement had brought forth any hint of the House he had formerly known. Funny thing about accepting your own death -- If you are, at the final moments, snatched back, that can often be more exhausting and disheartening than the thought of dying. After that, the living expect thanks and clear evidence of your great relief. Thereafter, you are required to struggle. You are _supposed_ to want to live again.

Pretty recalled many a patient saying as much to him during all those cancer doctor years. Maybe House was feeling like he ought to have died. In some ways, in such a world as the one in which they found themselves, a state of not being would be easier.

"Almost two years." Pretty answered. He held his breath, hoping House was going to talk more. Come out of his quiet place and be . . . as normal as anyone could be under the circumstances.

House nodded. "Lucky."

Pretty was struck that, yes, yes he had been lucky to find not only a congenial companion, but one he had known. He had managed to survive and fairly well compared to some, and with not one strong counterpart in his life, but two.

How many months had House been on the run, he wondered? "What happened to you after the outbreak?" Pretty asked.

House picked at a loose thread on the chair. "I tried . . to get to you, but no Blue-eyes were going to get across that water. I hear any who tried were shot on sight." He looked away from Pretties' steady eyes that never left his face for a moment. "Then I heard we were being rounded up and gassed. Makes sense."

Pretty felt a familiar _and_ disturbing sense of de-ja-vu. Perfectly like House to concede that something so horrible would make sense. To save the hundreds of thousands, let the thousands die.

"Numbers don't lie." He added as though reading Pretties' mind.

"How did you escape?" Pretty asked. Given his disability, House could hardly have run.

"I held up in a hole" He glanced at his leg. "Not so high up, until the army left the area. By that time I realized I was immune. Never got sick." He glanced at Pretty now, for the first time. "Don't worry, even if I'm a carrier, Brown eyes are immune."

"You know the army comes back? Every so often they sweep through the major centers."

"I know."

"What are they looking for?" Pretty hoped House knew. He and his companions didn't. No leaflets had been dropped for many months. They were cut off from the rest of the world, if there was a rest of the world anymore.

House shrugged. From years of experience as Houses' best friend, Pretty saw House knew why, but he didn't want to share the information. Not yet anyway.

He could think of nothing more to say, so he said what doctors often say to the sick, "We'll get you well now. You'll feel better soon."

-

-

-

House curled up on his sponge as small as he could make himself. Pretty could see he was in pain but did not try to touch or comfort him in any way. World ending or not, House was still House.

Baby wanted a roll but both Chocolate and Pretty declined in whispers, not knowing whether House understood that they were more than survival mates, or if he did, whether he would not conclude that he was expected to join in and then maybe bolt from their companionship altogether. What experiences House had endured during his time on the run, Pretty could guess. But whether any of it was of the sexual nature he did not know. Even if so, given the caliber of the street folk House had likely encountered, there was a good possibility none of it had been consented to.

Baby turned his back to Pretty, stiff with rejection. Pretty ignored the younger mans' snit and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come. Tomorrow was a new kind of life all over again.

XXX

Breakfast was usually black coffee and canned fruit or flat bread Pretty mixed up and baked on a pan in a little oil smothered in peanut butter pilfered from the surrounding apartments - those which had any shelf food left. They were lucky enough to find a jar of un-opened raspberry jam with an expiry date only reached a month ago. Expiry didn't mean "gone bad as of this date", as Pretty had quickly learned, merely "nutritional value dropping fast".

This morning was a celebration, at least to Chocolate and himself, with the miraculous encounter and rescue of their mutual friend.

Baby had other opinions. While Pretty showed House the tiny bathroom (where there was no running water, but a bucket sitting beside the toilet sufficed for flushing purposes. A toilet itself was luxury of the highest order), Baby complained to Chocolate, "If he stays, he has to do something. He can't just eat and use up resources while we do all the work."

Chocolate furrowed his brow at Babys' words and his volume. Chocolate kept his answer quiet and short. "Once he's well, he'll contribute."

"He's a cripple. What the hell can he do?"

Chocolate was already tiring of the conversation. "We'll figure it out. He's a friend. We're not going to dump him back on the street. Civilization may have ended out there, but it still exists in here."

Baby chewed his flat bread and jam. "I don't trust him."

Chocolate glanced toward the bathroom where Pretty had closed the door. He wasn't sure what they were doing in there but he was pretty sure House didn't need help shitting. "I don't care." He said to Baby, snapping at him harder than he meant to.

-

-

-

-

House sat on the toilet, resting his elbows on his knees. He was talking to Pretty, his eyes on the floor as though his thoughts had weight. His leg was hurting and he absent mindedly rubbed it every so often while his narrative never stopped.

Pretty had heard House talk before, but never so openly, never so unguarded. His was full of words, it seemed, that he needed to let go of. Dark, hurting things, shameful days he had to shed if he was to rejoin their tiny little square of humanity amidst the inhumane. "He kept me for about five months. I was trading for food."

Pretty held his breath but didn't ask. He could glean from Houses' manner what he'd been forced to trade to stay alive.

house enlightened him anyway. "My . . .body." He let his eyes rest on his friends face for a moment. "Sex." House swallowed. "I don't know if I'm clean anymore."

Pretty suddenly was enlightened as to why House was spilling the more sordid side of his struggle to survive. "Not clean". House wasn't sure he was disease free now. Chances are if he had a natural immunity to the Blue Virus, there was a chance HIV or the numerous other infections circulating around beyond their high-rise walls had not made its home in his cells. But there was just no way to know for sure.

Pretty lay one hand on Houses' left knee, the leg that did not hurt. "We'll keep an eye on you. We watch, we wait and if something changes, we'll know. Just like the old days."

Pretty and Chocolate knew they were clean. always had been. Baby was clearly packing health.

House nodded, smiling ever so slightly at Wilsons' joking reference to when they were real humans with jobs and lives. But his expression quickly sobered. He nodded in the direction of the living room. "That, . . .Baby? . . doesn't like me being here. I could feel his eyes on my back all night."

"He'll get used to you. Hell, even Choco- Foreman was excited to find you."

House didn't smile this time. His eyes wandered once over the bathroom walls in an all encompassing question regarding his new place in his new digs. "What am I supposed to do here?"

Pretty didn't care if House did nothing. House doing nothing would be a taste of old times. House leaving the work up to others would be the flavor of normal and common-place. A House-like pig-headed, stubborn recalcitrant behavior that, to Pretty, would feed his soul like sunshine on an overcast sky of grey. House with his feet up would be something to savor.

But Pretty was practical enough to accept that House would need to do _something_ to earn his keep. Something that required little standing, no lengthy hours on his feet. Nothing that would make his life more miserable with pain than it must already be. They had no pain-killers but two bottles of acetaminophen and one of ibuprofen pilfered from a vacant suite. It had to be a sitting job. "You can still wash dishes, can't you?"

XXX

Wilson breathed a sigh of relief that House had taken to doing all the dishes. While sitting on the floor with a wash basin. A week later, Chocolate found enough wood to banged together a tall stool so House was able to use the small kitchen sink. House also took to keeping Chocolates long blade sharp and polished.

While Chocolate and Baby, who made no bones about how he resented their new survival-mate, went out almost everyday trying to bag a white-tail, Chocolate with his blade and Baby with the long bow he had fashioned, Pretty brought House up-to-date on the events in their lives since their separation.

One day House asked, "What's with the weird monikers? _Pretty_ and _Chocolate_? And _Baby_?"

Wilson thought for a moment. "Survival of the mind. The soul."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"The old life is gone. It's over. Done with. Adopting new names, even nick-names, is like rebuilding. Why hang on to the past? It's never coming back."

"When did you become so cynical?"

"Since the world ended."

"World didn't end." House contended. "It's just sucks a whole lot more that it did."

"We're used to them now. I don't want to go back to the old name. It doesn't have any meaning anymore."

"It didn't have any meaning then. "Doctor", "Oncologist" had meaning. "James Wilson" had meaning to your parents."

"I prefer not to think about them too much."

House fell silent. He really hadn't wanted to stir up painful memories. "So am I expected to adopt a new name? I like my name."

"That's up to you I guess."

House took up an arrow tip Baby had molded. Though made from thin aluminum, Baby was good with the metal snips and pliers, and the tips were strong and lethal. The arrow shafts Baby had collected from a kite shop. No one cared for kiting anymore in a post apocalyptic world, and though puzzling to Pretty and Chocolate at the time, Baby had gathered as many pieces of wood and plastic kite frame pieces as he could, along with hundreds of strips of stiff plastic kite tail. Hundreds of pieces of both he had collected until his back-pack was straining with them, all with a mysterious smile on his lips.

Later, when Baby produced his first hunting arrow, they both were impressed with his thinking outside the box. Hunting from a distance gave them far more likelihood of success. Sneaking up on an animal had proved difficult in the extreme and their kills amounted to one in ten. That average had drop by half since Babys make-shift long bow had been brought into use.

House had become very adept at threading the metal arrow heads on the tips of the shafts, winding the waxed thread tightly and evenly. He had become masterful as well, at applying the flight feathers, though the feathers being instead made of plastic strips. Pretty was not surprised. House had always been good with his hands. Pretty had always suspected an artist beyond the musical one hidden in his friend, the man of science and reason. House was ever the contradiction. Against the world, that at least had not changed.

While House wound and wound the threads, pulling them snug and tight, he asked quietly. "What name would you give me?"

Pretty, eyebrows raised, felt a bit surprised and pleased. "I missed those damn blue eyes. You know, right, that you need to keep hidden? You're like a collectors item now."

House nodded. He looked uncomfortable at the reminder. "Yeah."

Pretty stared at Houses' eyes. "Well, how about _Blue_?"

"That's idiotic. When I'm outside, how am I supposed to stay hidden if you're calling me Blue?"

Pretty looked alarmed. "You can't go outside."

"Why not? I survived two years out there -- with my own eye color."

"It's dangerous. It's a miracle you're alive or not in some cage in a lab somewhere."

"Or it's because I'm not stupid and know how to keep my head down."

Pretty recognized another old quality that had not changed since Outbreak - stubbornness. "Just don't ever go out alone without protection." When House didn't answer right away, he added. "Please? I just got you back, and as controlling or obsessive as it sounds to you, I'd like to keep you now."

House nodded. "Fine. I won't go out alone. And Blue is a stupid name. My choices would be far more entertaining."

"Then pick one."

"_Genius. Gorgeous_ -- one up from _Pretty_. _Sex-machine. God_. I could go on and on."

Pretty smiled. He liked the third choice.

House caught his meaning easily enough. "So, are you, the three of you . . .involved?"

Logically House would suspect it. In a world where there were no women, men still had appetites. "Yes. It helps with the loneliness. And we've kind of grown attached."

"Up until now I haven't had anyone around to grow "attached" to."

Pretty suddenly felt a heady wave of desire. His head spun and his heart rate increased, shooting up his blood pressure. In a moment he was hard and wanting him. "I'd like to be that person."

House looked at him then, blushing, quickly looked away. He had obviously not expected the conversation to take such a sharply defined turn.

House didn't answer, exactly. What he did do is lay aside the arrow he had been working on and kept his eyes averted to anything but his old friend Wilson. House jumped in his skin when he saw Wil – Pretty -- suddenly reach out with one hand, like the strike of a rattler, and cup the back of his head, drawing him closer. Pulling himself closer until Pretties' lips just touched his own. Then Pretty opened his mouth and covered his, taking him with ever more urgent, unbroken kisses.

Suddenly, in a single motion, he stood up and, taking Houses' hands in his own, pulled him to his feet. Leading him to the bedroom, he quickly stripped off Houses' clothes, then his own and pulled House down onto the covers. Pretty rolled on top of him, mindful of his leg, and kissed him deeply, in between all the time whispering how much he had missed him, how awful it had been being able only to remember him and not see, talk to, and touch him every day. And that he loved him. He loved him so much. So much.

Pretty, wet with pre-cum slid his eager cock and body up and down on his old friend and new lover, savoring every inch of him, hungrily devouring the feel of Houses' hard cock against his own. Drinking in the smell and taste of Houses' goose fleshed skin, soft nipples and the rough whiskers under his chin. The sensation of Houses' sweat as the gooseflesh on his skin was replaced by the warming rush of his own desire. Actual loving, tender sex was being offered -- exchanged -- not a rape or a trade of body for sustenance.

Pretty drew out their love-making as long as he could, sucking Houses' lips, fucking his body until they both came in subsequent shudders in the cool room of November. Pretty finally collapsed on House, laying in silence with him. Raising his head to stare at Houses dilated eyes of tropical blue, suddenly he had the name.

He kissed House very tenderly. "I'm going to call you Lover."

XXXX

Part IV ASAP


	4. Chapter 4

Gone With the World

--

Part IV

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature.

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu **_

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"Thank you for helping me." Lover said to Chocolate one afternoon.

Pretty was having that rare and wonderful of things - a bath, and Baby had spent the morning, against Chocolates' better advice, checking out one or two of the surrounding buildings more thoroughly.

It was rare that anyone ventured out on their own but once Baby had decided on a matter, he could not be talked out of it. Group living did not mean strictly group approval for every action or freedom would have no meaning. Freedom was a cherished last flag of humanity, so each contributed and each was responsible for the safety of the whole. But each was also accountable for their own actions. Any foolish act that compromised the group would be voted on with either punishment such as extra work at the one extreme or exile at the other. At no time in the trios two years together had any such democratic action been necessary.

Baby enjoyed the benefits of the freedom to hold onto his own mind and conscience and understood the risks as well. They all did and he had come back laden with a sack of canned consumables, whooping as he entered when Chocolate lifted the cross-bar, unlocked and opened the door, Baby then holding up the sack like a trophy. He had also found Prettys' favorite - a small collection of fiction novels and was busy in the kitchen cataloguing and putting away the bounty.

"I couldn't leave you there." Chocolate said quietly, returning to his seat on the stool by the stuffed chair where Lover kept his hands busy waxing thread and winding arrow heads to thin wood shafts. Chocolate sharpened his long knife, more out of habit than necessity. Since his arrival Lover had taken over the job of keeping it honed to a fine edge.

Chocolate knew it was no explanation, and he had no sound reason to explain his actions. There was no calculable logic behind it. Pure human instinct had caused him to act. Ethics, conscience, soul, love. Whatever word used, it was as close to why as he could explain.

"Why not?"

Chocolate smiled just a bit to himself, amused and wondering at the resolute unchangeable-ness of humanity. Lover - House - had been right: People don't change. "Yeah, there _has_ to be a reason that makes sense to you, beyond giving a shit about another person. That's your philosophy, not mine."

"There's always a reason." Lover insisted. "It may not make sense to me, but there _is_ a reason. Samaritan-ism is just too dangerous a thing in this shining example of Homo-erectus society."

Chocolate snickered at the "Homo" part, a shallow attempt at humor. "I couldn't just walk away knowing you were going to be chopped up for someones' dinner. Okay?"

"Not okay. _Why_ couldn't you?"

Chocolate was wondering that more and more. He liked Lover enough - the man he used to be, the man he was now. He liked him enough to want him to stay, but he had forgotten the mans' insufferable nosiness. "Because I cared for you. Despite four years working for you, being subjected to your mouth and your addictions and your pathetic lone-wolf bull shit, I cared. All right? You egotistical, manipulative, _ass_? Ergo, I _still _care. That's why."

Lover, to Chocolate's incredulity, looked confused. "But why did you ca-?"

"Holy crap!" Chocolate shook his head. "Remember when I said I liked you? Then I said I lied about that? Well, I lied about _that_. Are you going to argue now about the whys for the whys for the whys? 'Cause you're digging yourself a tidy little hole here."

Lover stared, trying to find the lie behind Chocolate's dark, honest eyes. He nodded a tiny acknowledgment, a single forward tilt of his head. "Despite that useless sentimentality, you were one of the best doctors I ever worked with."

Chocolate accepted it was Lovers' way of conceding that maybe he wasn't absolutely beyond liking and to say thanks. It was Lover-House typical. No, people did not change no matter how much they wanted to. At least, not in the most human-evolutionary, baser, DNA programmed ways. Lovers' surface (like Prettys' or Babys'), undulated from day to day or flickered with varying shades of purpose but underneath, Chocolate could see the very same man. Lover was House. House was Lover. And it had become clear that Pretty was still the best friend and first obsession.

He was the same also. Different name and date in history. Different life and lovers. But still Foreman and Chocolate and his mothers son. "Pretty isn't yours exclusively. You get that, right?"

Lover looked over and cautiously nodded but his eyes questioned.

"Yeah," Chocolate let him know he knew all about he and Prettys' roles in the hay when no one was looking. "I know Prettys' been all over you and that he's as obsessive with you as you used to be with him. Not a day went by when he didn't talk about you at least once. He loves you. Makes sense I guess. But I love him. You want to get along with me, don't get in my way."

Baby brushed by, on his way to the bedroom to lay down with Pretty, and on his way passed his eyes raked over Lover like razors. There was no love there.

Lover stared pensively at his former employee. Everything being equal, everything according to Chocolate _was_ equal, but he asked, "I thought no one owned anyone in this place?"

"We love each other here."

Lover chanced a look at Baby. "Yeah. One big, happy family."

XXX

_"This is the First Corp of the New Government of the United States Army. Any BEI - that is - Any Blue Eye Immunes, we request you voluntarily turn yourselves in. By order of the President of the United States, you will not be harmed. Our orders are to escort you safely to holding facilities where you will be well treated. This is for your own safety and the safety and welfare of your fellow countrymen. By order of the President of the United States, you are asked to surrender yourselves voluntarily. We repeat, any BEI - Blue Eyed Immunes - are asked to surrender yourselves. You will not be harmed..."_

_-_

_-_

_-_

The recorded voice blaring over the loudspeaker woke them up from restless sleep.

Chocolate was the first one to the window, spreading the plastic blinds just enough to get a birds eye view of the procession of army vehicles fifteen floors below. So tiny and non-threatening at that distance.

A hand touched his shoulder. "What's going on?" Baby asked.

Chocolate shook his head. "I'm not sure. I thought I heard something about surrender or something. I think they're looking for someone." _I can guess who._

"Immunes I'll bet." Baby guessed and Chocolate figured he was right.

Chocolate watched the procession come to a halt and little human dots poured out of the larger vehicle, spreading out, heading toward the surrounding buildings. "Shit." He whispered as a group of four or maybe five made they way quickly toward their until now private high rise. Two smaller dots, probably dogs, lead the way.

Chocolate went to the bed and shook Lover and Pretty awake. Baby watched from the window.

"Wha- what?" Pretty asked, rubbing sleep from his face.

"Get up." Chocolate nodded toward Lover. "They're here. They're looking for Immunes."

Pretty felt his heart sink. "They? You mean . .?"

"Yeah." Chocolate helped a just waking Lover to his feet. "_They_. The Army, whose ever army it is. They're looking for Blue Eyes. We gotta' hide Lover."

Lover heard and scrambled to his feet, almost stumbling over to his cane and slipping on a pair of thread bare jeans to cover his nudeness. He was in pain and was having a hard time following Chocolates' words, but trying to obey his instructions as Chocolate urged he and Pretty to their little fortresses door.

Chocolate pushed Pretty and Lover into the hallway. "Get him to the roof. There's a ladder at the east end. It descends one floor into a big air duct - no screen. Easy access. That leads to a utility room where the air conditioning was kept, back when it worked. The door to that room can only be entered from the top floor. Steel door - bolted. No key. There's plenty of room in there for two. Just keep quiet and stay low until I come for you."

Pretty helped Lover hurry away down the hall to the stairwell. They were only four floors below the roof. It would be a tough climb for Lover but not impossible.

Once on the roof, Pretty saw the ladder, a rusted thin contraption that appeared to have been made for a child. He had mis-givings and wondered if whether it would be better to find an empty closet somewhere and wait there.

Lover seemed to have no fear of heights or hanging off the side of a tower and handed his stick-cane to Pretty, maneuvering himself out onto the ladder in the high, cold wind. He used his left leg to support his weight and lowered himself from one rung to the next with small, controlled jumps. Pretty followed.

They found the air duct a floor below and crawled through its grimy darkness to the room in question. Chocolate had been very thorough in his search of the building. Everything was exactly as he said. It was unlikely dogs noses could follow them. "The wind should carry away our body odor." Pretty said to Lover, hoping that was true.

-

-

-

-

Chocolate sat at the top of the stairs, un-armed. The troop stomping quickly up the many floors of stairs would be well armed. Rifles with bullets. Dogs with keen noses, ready to attack if they sniffed a hint of violence. There was no point in a confrontation. Cooperation was the key.

Cooperation and lots of lying.

A stern man in his forties with hair cut so short he may as well have been bald approached him with weapon ready, but not pointed at him. He was on a quest but not for a Brown Eye.

Chocolate tried not to tense up, but the sight of so many armed men made his heart skip along like a frightened school girl. He was a doctor, not a soldier. Though, in certain ways, present life had rallied him for both.

"Name?" The stern man with the rifle asked. No greeting. Not friendly.

"Chocolate."

"Your _real_ name!"

"Eric Foreman."

Military man looked behind to another, younger soldier who quickly punched up information from a slick looking type of Palm Pilot.

"You lived here before?" The lead soldier asked. He gestured behind him and three other soldiers lead two sniffer dogs further up the stairs, looking for others, either Brown or Blue.

Chocolate knew the question referred to his life before the Outbreak. "Yes."

Soldier number two said, "Foreman, Eric. Neurologist. Worked four and a half years Princeton Plainsborough Hospital under Doctor Gregory House. One short stint at another hospital. Fired after six months."

Chocolate flinched at the reminder.

Soldier number two said, his voice a little higher and faster, "Captain! Physical descrip' of House says he was a Blue Eye."

Soldier number one turned back to Chocolate. "You know where we can find the BEI?"

Chocolate tried to sound natural and bored with the questions. "Never saw him after Outbreak. He's probably dead."

Soldier number one stared at him, solid disbelief in his dark eyes. "We got a report that says otherwise. We got a report that there's a Blue Eye hold up somewhere in this area."

Chocolate hoped the dogs could not smell his fear from one floor up. "There's no Blue Eyes here. Me and Bab -- _Tan_ live here. That's all. Brown as mud."

Soldier number one stared at him until Chocolate began to sweat.

"We'll be checking every room in this building. If you're lying . . ."

Chocolate managed a good approximation of an irritated sigh. "Can I go now?"

"Which door is yours?"

"Fifth door on the right." He gestured back down the hall. "We'll leave it open for you."

-

-

Chocolate brought Baby up to date on his encounter with the soldiers and their purpose for the sweep.

Baby said. "You should have left him with the Traders."

Chocolate stared at him for a few seconds, suddenly filled with a terrible insight. "When you went out earlier, did you already know the soldiers were here? Did you get up early and go exploring? Was there a drop?" He asked, speaking of the leaflets that occassionally still fluttered from the skies.

Baby had done that a few times in the past - got up and snuck out early enough that no one could argue him down.

Baby stared back defiantly. "The Immune is trouble. He's a liability."

"He's a human _being_. He has a name."

Baby held his ground, refusing to look away.

For Chocolate, that alone was confirmation enough.

Coldly as the driven snow, "I don't want him here." Baby said.

Chocolate swallowed. "Jesus. You _sold him out_." He whispered. "You told them he was here, didn't you?"

"_No_!" He snarled. "I'm not stupid. I told them I had seen an Immune hanging around, trying to steal food."

"You think they won't put one and one together and come up with _three_? They're within their Martial Law-appointed rights to execute us for this."

Baby set his jaw. "I don't want him here. I _never_ wanted him here. You didn't even _ask_ us."

"You're jealous over Pretty. That's why you did this." Chocolate wanted to hit him. Knock some sense into his young, impulsive, seething with jealousy second lover. "You _stupid_ son-of-a-prick." Chocolate took up his knife. "They find Lover and they'll _shoot_ Pretty in the process."

Chocolate made a move to sneak out the door but Baby grabbed his arm. "Turn him in then. Make a deal. Tell them we'll deliver the BEI if they let us go."

Chocolate felt his teeth grinding and heard the crackling sound of them in his ears. Baby had all but undone their little family grouping. As much as he cared for Lover, Pretty was essentially his mate. No way was he going to sacrifice Pretty. "You stupid goddamn ass." He said to Baby. "Take your stuff and get the fuck out."

Babys' eyes grew round. "Wha- I'm not going anywhere. All they want is the Immune." Then they grew angry. "Besides, you can't just kick me out. There has to be a vote. "

Chocolate sheathed his knife and tied it around his waist. "You think Prettys' going to vote to keep you? He knew and loved "the Immune" before you were ever born. Do yourself a favor and go, before he finds out what you've done and decides that being allowed to leave is too good for you."

Somehow Chocolate had to get to his hiding lovers, get away somehow to somewhere and try to salvage all three of their lives.

He made it only a few yards when he heard the shouting of the soldiers.

Then gun fire.

XXX

Chocolate ran hell bent up the flights of stairs and directly to the door he knew led to the tiny air conditioning ventilation room. When he arrived, the soldiers were already there. The dogs had used their amazing canine noses and sniffed out the quarry. All five soldiers were wearing paper face masks. Chocolate felt sick at their ignorance. Any Immune who had survived to this point was not a carrier of the virus. Lover was harmless. Hence the label _Immune_. He knew the military minds surrounding him would not care for the lecture. To them Lover was a threat.

Chocolate could see the gun fire had been the soldiers shooting out the internal lock of the door. It gaped open. Soldier number three (not the leader nor the guy with the Palm Pilot), shone a flashlight into its dark interior along with his smoking rifle and shouted. "Come out! Right now!" After only a two second pause. "Right now or we _will_ fire!"

Chocolates heart sank as a pair of hands showed themselves from the dark interior. Pretty staggered out into the blinding glare of the soldiers flashlight. When no other hands appeared, Chocolate felt a faint hope that somehow Lover had escaped. But then two more hands appeared, one holding a familiar stick-cane.

Soldier number four slung his weapon, grabbed Lovers outstretched hands and threw him roughly to the ground.

Prettys face was painted in anguish as Lover was hand and ankle-cuffed and then gagged. He protested. "He's not armed - he's a cripple. You don't have to - " Soldier number three raised the butt of his rife and hit Pretty in the face, dropping him like a flour sack. Chocolate went to help him and received a rifle barrel in his face for his trouble. He stopped and lifted his hands to the height of his shoulders, hoping the fellow didn't have a twitchy trigger finger.

Lead soldier stepped up to him, real close. "We could execute you for this. Harboring an BEI is a Federal crime, _Eric_. Treason."

Chocolate was sick of the whole cloak and dagger shit-load. "Then shoot me, Captain G.I."

The Captain stepped away, neither raising his gun nor giving the command to do so. "Any other time, I would have. You better believe it. But those are not my orders today."

Captain Soldier snapped his fingers and two of his lemmings hoisted Lover between them. All five stony faced soldiers, happy in the accomplishment of their mission, and the two German Shepherds wagging their tails, tromped away in their rhythmic army style.

Chocolate helped Pretty to his feet. His face was bleeding from a gash caused by the rifle butt, but otherwise he appeared unhurt. Feeling like cowards, they listened to the soldiers descending the stairs, waiting in fear until all was quiet again.

Chocolate helped Pretty back to their tiny living space. Baby was gone, as was a good portion of the food.

Chocolate numbly surveyed the careless mess their betrayer had left behind. "I wonder what they're paying him?" He asked no one.

Pretty sat down in the stuffed chair and held a rag to his face, his eyes brimming. "Why didn't they kill us?"

Chocolate shook his head. "I have no idea."

He righted the stool Lover had used to sit at the sink to wash dishes and out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the two small hand-fashioned arrow quiver Baby had made for himself. Chocolate turned it upside down. But for a small green leaflet that fluttered to the ground, it was empty. A word on the leaflet caught his eye and he picked it up.

Reading it, his stomach lurched. "Oh my god." He thrust it under Prettys' nose. "Read this."

Pretty read the missive aloud: "_**By The fourteenth Amendment of the New World Constitution of the United States - Henceforth execution of any BEI is unlawful under penalty of death. As of December Fifteenth, Two Thousand Ten, Operation BEI Capture and Release Phase One is underway. Luxury accommodation, food and supplies afforded to any Brown Eyes willing to participate in the location and capture of BEI Mutations. Operation BEI Capture and Release Phase One is the first Phase in a decades long project of the utmost importance. All Brown Eyes wishing to benefit from Capture and Release signal your intent by Light at Night via battery operated flash, fire or other means from December fifteenth to June fifteenth inclusive. Fly-bys will take note of your location and contact you directly. Participation for Brown Eyes is strictly voluntary but COMPULSORY for BEI's. NO EXCEPTIONS."**_

A confused Pretty looked at Chocolate. "What is _Operation Capture and Release_?"

Chocolate took the note and himself silently read it again. "And what the hell do they mean by _BEI mutations_?"

XXX

Part V ASAP!


	5. Chapter 5

Gone With the World

--

Part V

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains implied RAPE SCENES and commentary. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu **_

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"We set up a signal. The "light by night"." Chocolate explained. "We make a fire on the roof."

Pretty put three stitches in his cut left cheekbone while he pointed out the flaw in Chocolates' plan. "And they'll come to pick us and BEI up. Only we have no Blue Eyed Immune. Lover's gone. They took him."

Chocolate nodded. "They were asking for brown eyed volunteers. So we volunteer."

"We have no idea what this "Catch and Release" is. It's probably a code word for capture and "release" to the firing squad."

Chocolate sat cross legged in front of Pretty, holding a small hand mirror so he could finish his self treatment. "I heard a helicopter last night, a few blocks away. They wouldn't be sending out choppers to bring in individuals simply to cut them down. This has something to do with -- well, I'm not sure -- but human survival isn't a bad guess."

"Right. The human race will survive by the army capturing rogue BEI's and brown eyed men all for the noble purpose of treating them nice. I'm sure posterity was the foremost thing on their minds when they hog-tied Lover and butt-wacked me."

"You giving up on him?" Chocolate asked, knowing it would jump start Prettys' anger-engine.

"No." He swabbed his cut with alcohol and taped a tiny square of gauze over it. "I want to get to him, but we're two men against an army. We don't even know where they'll be taking us."

"There's only one way to find out." Chocolate stood up. "I'm going to the roof to light a fire."

Pretty already knew he would go with Chocolate before the conversation began. Even if they didn't find Lover, it beat the hell out of staying here, maybe alone, until he died of old age. "I'll get some blankets." He said.

Three nights in a row they lit a fire on the roof and sat huddled in blankets to keep out the cold, waiting. On the second night they heard but did not see a helicopter in the distance.

Late into the third night, they heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter getting closer, its blades cutting harshly through the still night air. Chocolate watched it approach and slowly settle down on the roof, sending dust and bits of masonry up in a whirlwind. "Here we go." Chocolate said into Prettys' ear.

A bright beam from a search light fell on them, illuminating a large circle around them and their dying fire. A mans' voice burst from a bullhorn, "You brown or Blues?"

Chocolate shed the blanket and stood up, showing them his obvious dark face and cupping his hands around his mouth to make it past the din of the idling helicopter engine. "Browns!" He shouted.

A arm in green fatigues waved them over. "Double time." It's owners voice shouted back through the bullhorn.

Chocolate urged Pretty to his feet and they quickly boarded the mechanical beast.

Three faceless military personnel in fatigues and holding automatic weapons sat against one side of the chopper while they were motioned to sit on the other side. A man with a medics' cross on his upper arm sleeve shone a light in both their eyes to confirm the color. He gave a thumbs up to the man in command, seated beside the pilot. "Confirmed. Two Browns."

Chocolate and Pretty settled in as they felt the powerful machine lift off and rise into the dark. He took one last look down at the building which had become their temporary home. Soon it was gone from sight.

-

-

-

-

They flew for over thirty minutes, leaving the city behind and passing over some passive countryside. Daylight arrived during their flight and Pretty pointed out the left window. "Isn't that Mercer Park?" He whispered to Chocolate.

Chocolate nodded. "I think so. Looks like we might be headed to Trenton."

"That's correct, sir." The medic said. "The New Center for Disease Control, Study and Species Propagation."

The commander told his underling to shut up.

Pretty whispered back to Chocolate, "Interesting combination. They must be studying how the Virus managed to wiped out the female population, what specifics were involved in its infection and spread." Pretty addressed the medic seated across from him, ignoring the commanders previous bark. "Is that what this is? Is that why you needed brown eyes? And why you rounded up the BEI's? The government's trying to figure out how to stop it or how to prevent it spreading to the cache of human ova that they no doubt have safely stored somewhere? They're going to try test-tubbing babies."

"Can't say, sir."

Meaning, Pretty thought, either can't because he doesn't know or he knows but isn't allowed to elaborate.

Chocolate agreed with Pretty. "They're probably wanting blood samples from everyone. Collecting them under sterile conditions to avoid cross contamination or because they think the virus is still out there and we might be carriers." He whispered back to Pretty then in a normal voice addressed the medic, "Are we close?"

This time he didn't answer.

The helicopter landed on a flat roofed building four stories high and they could hear the distinct whine slowing down while its engine was shut off.

Accompanied by two of the military personnel Chocolate and Pretty were hustled to a door leading to a stairwell, walking ahead of the soldiers down one flight of stairs to an elevator. Stepping inside, a sequence of numbers was rapidly punched up and the elevator descended. Chocolate was a little dizzy from the speed of their descent, not used to all the pre-Outbreak modern conveniences that this facility seemed to have in abundance. By the lights passing by on the other side of an air vent, Chocolate counted five floors. When the ride stopped, he figured they were at least two levels underground.

The elevator opened to a whole new world where everything was grey and dull on their side, and everything on the other side of clear double entry partitioned doors was white and sparkling clean. Electronic locks in between were a clear message that this was a clearance-only facility with a strictly controlled environment. The place was obviously fully powered and staffed. People in paper cover-alls and slippered feet went this way and that, carrying files, medical instruments, trays crowded with vials of unidentifiable liquids, clip-boards, food trays and all manner of electronic Knicks-knacks. Pretty said to Chocolate, "Like a clean room."

Chocolate nodded, "Only about a hundred-fifty times the size." On the other side of the double sealed plexiglass doors, a long corridor lead away, fractal-ing into other corridors leading to other locked, partitioned areas. Even by their limited vantage point, the place appeared massive.

"Wait here for the doctor." One of the their two escorts instructed, then gave a jerk of his head to his fellow soldier. They re-entered the elevator and the door shut behind them, leaving Chocolate and Pretty alone in the corridor. Pretty murmured, "In for a blood test, in for a trial."

"Trial for what?" Chocolate wondered, curiously watching the comings and goings of the many personnel.

"That's what scares me."

XXX

Momentarily a short, bald man walked toward them from the other end of the sealed corridor, seemingly from miles away, so long did it take him to reach the doors separating the two areas. He paused to punch in a code and the plexiglass door slid aside to allow him entry to the chamber between. A rush of air swirled around him, causing his paper-suit to flap clownishly, then he entered a second code to open the door closest to them.

He thrust two paper suits at them. "Here. Put these on. Take everything else off, including your shoes."

He stood, idling watching them as they obeyed, stripping nude then donning the thin, billowy outfits. They were one-size-fits-all and Prettys bagged slightly more than Chocolates, the greater bulk of his body better filling out the fluffy material.

Once they were dressed, the bald doctor turned, punched in another long code and they entered the in-between room. Once the door behind them was re-sealed, air rushed in and made clowns of them all. Pretty felt a mist of wet, anti-septic spray in the mix. His nose sniffed. Possibly a chlorine-bleach-fluoride combination to kill any surface germs that lingered.

Once the doctor had opened the other door and lead them down part way down the sparkling white corridor, he introduced himself. "My name's Doctor Laurent. I'm in charge of this facility and everything that goes on here-"

"-what _does_ go on here?" Chocolate asked, tired of the Get Smart KAOS routine.

For a moment, Laurent ignored his question, turning at a junction and leading them through another series of secure doors. They walked for what felt like three blocks. Finally "You volunteered. They must have told you what for."

Pretty answered, "Not exactly." When Laurent didn't elaborate, he grew testy, "Look. This is Choc - _Doctor_ Foreman, I'm _Doctor_ Wilson, we're looking for a friend who was brought here. A BEI. All we were told is browns volunteer, but we haven't been told for what. We'd apprec-"

Laurent stopped in front of a metal door. Another code was entered and it swung open to his touch. "They'll fill you in." He indicated with his head they should enter. He was not following.

Pretty and Chocolate stared at the rows and rows of single beds each containing a man. Many of them were sleeping. Others sat up reading, were eating or drinking, some were on catheters, some were undergoing medical examinations - heart, lungs, BP, . . a male nurse was scraping one fellows' skin for a sample, carefully guiding his epithelial into a tiny beaker.

A pleasant looking, young black man approached them. His name tag said Nurse Rory Chilsome. "Hello." He smiled at them. "Come with me. I'll get you settled in a room. New arrivals get royal treatment the first night. Then I'm afraid it's the common chamber after that."

In a daze, Chocolate and Pretty followed pleasant Nurse Rory to a small room, one of dozens, just down from the huge main ward. "What kind of experiments are being done here?" Chocolate asked.

"Oh --" Rory sounded surprised.

Pretty was getting sick of no answers.

"-- I thought they would have explained it to you. They've been dropping the leaflets for weeks and weeks."

Rory showed them to two single beds complete with pillows, sheets and comforters. There was two bottles of water sitting on a small table between them and magazines piled beside them. Pretty noticed the magazines had publishing dates from nearly three years passed. Medical facilities never changed. He supposed he ought to find some comfort in that.

Chocolate was bone weary and half debated whether they should just forgo questions until after they both got some shut-eye.

Pretty had other ideas. "Look, Rory? I'm sure you're a nice kid. But _I want_ to know where my friend is. They picked him up three days ago and we're pretty sure he was brought here."

"A Brown or a B-M?"

Pretty shook his head, unfamiliar with the anagram other than applied to intestinal function. "Sorry. "_BM_"?"

"Blue Mutation. Is he a Brown or a Blue?"

Pretty stared, almost in shock at the question. Like browns or blues were a choice of salad dressing and Rory would just hop to it and provide it as ASAP as his cute little ass could.

"He's a BEI. He was beaten, gagged and taken."

"They do that sometimes - not _supposed _to. Without the B-M's, where would we end up? Those army guys can be total pricks. Anyway, BEI's and especially B-M's are off-limits until it's their time. But if the military picked him up, he's here somewhere."

Chocolate only understood a little of what Rory clearly thought he should already know, so he tried to ask a question with far more pleasantness than had Pretty. "Our friend -- the Blue Eye? -- he was pretty thin. And he's a cripple. Probably in a lot of pain. We just want to be sure he's okay. Is there any way we can find that out?"

Rory thought for a moment. "Look. Write me a description with a name and I'll see what I can do. In the meantime-" He handed them each a metal tube six inches in length and the thickness of twice a mans' thumb. "We'll need a sample from each of you."

Chocolate and Pretty stared dumbly at the mystery tubes. "Sample? What of?"

Rory chuckled a bit. "R-i-g-ht. _Funny_." He pointed to the pile of magazines on the small table. "If you're not into each other, those'll help with a jump-start. Viewing for all tastes." Rory winked and walked out, closing the door after him.

Only then, as Pretty looked more closely at the magazines, did he see what their main subjects were. "These are porn." He said to Chocolate, who walked over to see for himself.

Chocolate quickly flipped through one after another. "Pornography. Women and men." He looked at the metal tube, his physicians mind toggling quickly over into fully active mode. "They want _sperm_ samples."

Pretty stared at his friend. "This is a breeding facility."

XXX

Rory returned after half an hour to find neither man had provided the required fluid sample. "Um. This isn't a Whore-house. If you want to "participate", you gotta give us a squirt."

Chocolate handed the nurse the two tubes. "We'd be happy to "participate" if we knew exactly what we were participating _in_. We came here to find our friend."

Rory sighed over his two, new troublesome charges and took out a small note pad. "When was he brought in?" He waited, pen ready to jot down whatever information they could provide.

"Three days ago from Princeton. He's six-two, brown hair going grey. Fifty-one years old, fit but thin from a starvation diet -- street-fed. He's got a long narrow face, serious attitude, blue eyes--"

"--Really_, incredibly_ blue eyes." Pretty interjected.

Rory scribbled. "That's probably enough. There are only a few thousand left in North America, I'm told, across fifteen states so far. Pretty thin base-line, but if your guy's here, I'll find him. What your message?"

"Message?" Pretty asked back. "No -- we want to _see_ him."

Rory shook his head. "Strictly against the rules. We can't have people falling in love you know." He nodded to them both. "Even you two guys will be separated as soon as it's determined genetically who you'll best be paired with."

Chocolate narrowed his eyes. He was sick of riddles and being half informed. "What the _hell _are you talking about?"

Rory tucked his pen away and stuck the note pad back in his pocket. "You're two healthy brown-eyed males. We have a stock of mostly healthy blue-eyes. What do you _think_ you'll be doing?"

Pretty and Chocolate exchanged looks. "Are you saying we're going to be bred with blue eyed males?"

"Well, _yeah." _Rory frowned. "Ya' lucky bastards." He looked disappointed. "I've got HIV -- from _Pre_-Outbreak -- so I don't qualify."

Rory turned to go but Pretty grabbed his arm. "Please." He released his arm when Rory pulled away and rubbed it. "Sorry. Are you saying our friend -- that blue eyed males -- are going to be _impregnated_? I'm a doctor and, uh, last time I looked? -- even blue-eyes didn't have the equipment."

Rory shrugged like it was none of his business. "Nature finds a way, honey." He explained with customary indifference. "Your friend was brought in because in all likelihood he's mutated over the last couple years like most BE's have. They survived the virus. Nature selected them as the strongest males for the _task_." He wiggled his eyebrows. "Boring, standard educational film." He supplied with an eye-roll. "We all had to watch it when we signed on. All blue-eyes are or have already mutated. Just the insides, you get it? No playpen or bassinet but just enough of the other stuff to make it possible -- like an inside-out Kangaroo."

When Pretty kept staring, "Look, you wanna' see the DVD? I'll get you a portable." Rory suggested.

Stunned by the revelation, Chocolate stammered, "Yes. Please, um we'd like to learn more. We want to cooperate."

Pretty angrily added, "_If_ it'll get us in to see our friend."

Rory ignored Prettys' comment and instead smiled at Chocolate suggestively. "You're a hot number. All I can do is _dream_ about "cooperating" or cooperate with myself in the _shower_. I'll get the stuff, hon'. Be right back."

Pretty collapsed on the edge of one of the beds and buried his face in his hands. He looked up at Chocolate, shaking his head. "When -- they -- _how _did we miss this?"

Chocolate shrugged. "Leaflets?"

"We read the leaflets."

"We did _not_." Chocolate scoffed. "We did for a while until we saw nothing changing and no promises fulfilled and no hope. Then we started burning them for heat just like everybody else."

"But this place, the power, the food, the people, how did they get this together so _fast_?"

"My guess is they were probably already building it for test-tube kids post-Outbreak, figuring they could resurrect females that way. They just tweaked their resources a little when they discovered what was happening among the BE population."

Pretty did not look happy with the news that Lovers' "insides" were about to be donated out to every eager Cock, Dick and Faerie they shoved him into a room with.

Chocolate did not fail to note Prettys' tense, worried face.

"As weird as it is, it still beats the hell out of test-tube baby odds." Chocolate tried thinking scientifically about it and encouraging Pretty to do the same. "At best those are a roll of the dice. Nine in ten fail to mature passed twenty hours. Now, suddenly BE's, as rare as they are, are even more valuable, and I mean for _other_ than rape or trade. Now males like Lover are crucial. Lover's probably sitting up in a soft bed with silk sheets being fed and pampered like a k -- _queen_."

XXX

"Strap 'im down." A tall orderly snapped at his shorter assistant.

"We keep doing this, we'll never get any of them to cooperate with the project." His shorter, less irritated assistant said.

"There's no _cooperate_ in _compulsory_, idiot. This BM's been street-meat since Outbreak. Here, he'll get good food, a good bed and even a "career"." He threw his BM a leering smile over the last word. "If being a Fetus Factory Whore can be called a career."

The shorter one corrected him. "Embryos. He'll be making _embryos_. Two or three hundred fetuses'd kill him. He'd blow up like a water balloon."

"Whatever."

Their patient was strapped down on the raised Gurney, a mouth gag in place. He struggled fiercely, glaring daggers at his captors, his blue eyes blazing and repeatedly straining until his face turned red, but the taut canvas straps over his wrists, chest and hips held fast.

"Rel-a-a-x, Juliet." Tall guy said. "Your first Romeo's right in the next room." He nodded to his less sarcastic second man. "Help me with his legs."

Second man, with far more gentleness than his work-mate, lifted his charges' right leg off the Gurney and tried to bend it at the knee. His BM fought savagely, almost kicking him in the head. Short man sweated for several minutes before giving up. "We need some Knock-out."

The taller fellow was less willing. He wanted the numbers for his unit kept down, and that meant the less expensive drugs used, the more his superiors would be pleased with his work. Their happiness translated into more privileges for him. "Just stick his calf muscle. He'll cooperate."

The sympathetic one shook his head. "No way. No injuries, that's the rule. Even a needle prick could let in infection, not to mention let out blood."

"He's been marked _clean_." Tall man looked at his work-mate with misgivings. "What's with you? These sweet BM asses get you off? This guys's fifty if he's a day. I didn't know you had a daddy fetish."

"Shut-up. Can't you see he's in enough pain as it is? The doc's say to keep the stress to a minimum, it causes bleeds and miscarriages. I'm going to go and request a snoot full for this one."

"Fine." The tall one stepped back, releasing his BM's left leg who let hit fall heavily to the Gurney.

The tall orderly leaned against the sterile rooms' one counter and crossed his arms, idly looking his charge up and down. "You're not bad meat even if you are fifty and street fed." Real nice eyes, too, he thought. That's what got most brown-eyed jerking off now. Those rare, cool blues. Like northern mined coal-fired gems. A bitch to find but once you had 'em, they glimmered bluer than any. Like welding flame.

He smiled lasciviously at his helpless BM. "I don't know why you're struggling? This is a sweet gig. You're get to be fucked by the _cream _of the crop, street-meat." He laughed at his own joke.

The BM turned his head away.

The short orderly returned and quickly gave his charge the shot in his left shoulder muscle. "There." He said, trying to soothe him. "You'll be more relaxed now. It won't . . .hurt as much." He assured him.

After a five minute interval, his checked his charges eyes. The beauty of the blue had been slightly obscured by the dilation of his black irises. "He's goofy." He announced to his partner, who reluctantly returned to the task at hand. "_Finally_. Let's get this show on the road."

They each took a floppy, drugged up leg, short guy being careful with the obvious old injury on the BM's right thigh, bending each at the knee and lifting them up as far as they would go, until they almost lay on either side of his arms. They wrapped more canvas straps around his knees and ankles, pulling them snugly into place.

Tall man let his eyes roam over the BM's exposed genitals and lower quarters.

His partner recognized his work-mates ugly nature about to assert its full self and excused himself from the room. While hurrying through the door, he gave the guy his personal opinion. "You're a real _asshole. _Small wonder you failed the personality equation. Wouldn't want your fucked up spawn swimming around in anybody."

Tall guy ignored the other orderly and traced his finger over his BM's naked chest, circling his nipples in a figure eight. "This is the first hour of your compulsory "service" in the Catch and Release Program." He cleared his throat. "And I am required to give you the standard lecture."

"See. We _catch_ you, and then six to a dozen or so different brown eyes shove their hungry_, hungry_ cocks into you -- and I warn you," he said with a wicked smile, "most of them are so fired-hot to knocking someone - _anyone _- up, they're not too worried about foreplay or bringing you candy and flowers."

He suddenly frowned. "Where was I? Oh, yeah! Once those dozen or so brown-eyes have fucked you boneless, the _gallons_ of cum that they _released_ down that tight brown tunnel of yours is going to mingle together in your brand new self-made abdominal womb, that I'll _bet_ you didn't know was there, and merge with your DNA, making all kinds of tiny little egg-like sex cells. It's kind of like cloning but not copies of just you. Copies of you and the nameless, faceless guys who fucked you for hours and _hours_.

He straightened, stretching his back luxuriously, walking over to a drawer. Our of it he pulled a small jar of clear lubricant. "Therefor, the Program is essentially: _You_ are caught, forcibly fucked and -TAH-DAH! - you're pregnant! Hundreds of teeny people," he held his index finger and thumb apart just a touch, "all swimming around in your abdominal sack. Males _and_ females. All shapes and colors too." He donned anew rubber glove. "Now you might think us fiends, but I assure you, we are not without heart." He scooped a large dollop of the gelatinous mass onto an index finger. Walking back to his trussed up charge, he crudely applied it to the exposed anus with a lazy plop.

Smiling at his tied up BM, "Isn't it romantic? You get to make the human race a few hundred new babies. And don't even get me started on the birthing process -- which, naturally, _hurts_. I mean, I don't want to ruin all the surprise!"

He walked to the door. "Shall we invite in your first "date" of the evening?" He turned the knob, looking back with a wink. "Congratulations fetus Whore," he said, finishing his self-indulgent show with a lipless smooch, "this is the first day of the rest of your life."

XXX

Part VI ASAP!


	6. Chapter 6

Gone With the World

--

Part VI

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains implied RAPE SCENES and commentary. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu **_

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The next morning when Rory came to fetch them from their double-occupancy room to transfer them to the general ward, Pretty announced. "We want to volunteer, as _doctors." _

Chocolate crossed his arms. "There must be a need for physicians here. I'm a neurologist," he nodded to Pretty, "and he's a oncologist. I'm sure the facility is as short doctors as it is BM's."

Rory shrugged. "Probably. I'll have to talk to my supervisor. He'll talk to Laurent and _he'll_ decide if he needs more specialists or _sperm_alists."

Chocolate and Pretty followed Rory to their assigned beds. At least they were side by side so they could talk. As comfortable and private as the room was, out on the main ward there were afforded the freedom to look around and study the goings-on. "I wonder where the obstetrics ward is?" Chocolate asked, though not really expecting an answer.

XXX

They soon found out. Hundreds of Blue-Eyes occupied beds. Hundreds of others were sequestered in more controlled environments. Doctor Laurent, after having their qualifications verified from his facilities extensive data-base, assigned both of them to general care. They were to oversee a dozen BM's each in seperate wards daily.

Chocolate carefully palpitated a young Blue-eyes lower abdomen. It showed slight swelling.

Both Chocolate and Pretty had been thoroughly brought up to date on the intricacies - and natural miracle - of human male pregnancy. Chocolate, every time he felt the unusual thickening of the skin above the pelvic region and the obvious swelling, shook his head.

"I can't get used to it." he said one day to Pretty, who was dealing with a difficult pregnancy in a middle-aged Blue-eye, who had a temperature. "What?" His mind was on his patient, and on Lover whom he knew was somewhere in the huge complex, no doubt going through something similar.

"Pregnant _men_." It was not lost on him that Lover was probably already in an advanced pregnant state and he and Pretty had applied once a week to be transferred to the Over-Fifty-Ward, the older Blue-eyes whose health and therefore pregnancies had to be monitored more closely, they being at greater risk for complications due to their age.

Pretty was almost ulcerated with worry about Lover and he and Chocolates' requests for transfers had thus far been denied.

Doctor Laurent assured Pretty, though, "Your BM is fine. He's safer in here than in the rough territory." The standing philosophy for the new world was: inside was order and civilization, outside was chaos and barbarian-ism. "You'll get to see him eventually. We all have friends somewhere. I myself have a _son_ on the Propagation Level."

Chocolate was dismayed at how rapidly civilization had resorted to labels rather than names in reference to the members of its newest race of slaves. Civilization had not be restored or if it had, merely to an old, familiar water-mark.

Pretty sat stiffly on the edge of the form mattress, his knuckles white on his knees. "How the hell are we going to get Lover out of here? We've been here nearly two _months_."

Chocolate had been thinking about it. "I agree this is a kind of prison lab, but Lover's getting the nutrition he needs to recover his strength. On the outside, in the Rough, he may not have."

Pretty stared, his face resentful at the suggestion but his physicians mind unable to refute the health sense of Chocolate's statement. "But he's still a prisoner. _Compulsory _it said. That means if he resists, and we both know he probably _is_, they'll have to strap him down, maybe drug him -- maybe worse."

"We'll find him. We're not going to know what to do or how to negotiate if we start bucking the system. This system has its own laws and new rules and we have no idea where we'd stand in a chamber of Law. I think, for now, we should go along as best we can and eventually we'll get to see him or at least learn how to buck the system and get away with it." He hopped up on the mattress beside his partner. "Unless you're thinking of taking on an army?"

Pretty shook his head, sighing. Chocolate kissed his cheek. "We'll get him back." He said. "I promise."

XXX

Doctor Laurent sighed at one of his latest, and sickest, BM. "He's experienced a heavy bleed." He muttered, as a nurse in a paper mask mopped up the congealing body fluid with rag after rag. "Yes." The nurse answered. The plastic mattress prevented a stain, so once he was finished wiping away the thick red pool of blood and tissue, he disinfected the area and rolled his unconscious BM onto his back once more.

"That's the second one in as many impregnations. Mind you, he was _thin_ when he arrived. . ." Laurent talked aloud, expecting no input from the nurse. He had worked with this nurse before and liked his easy manner with the BM's. He didn't hate or envy or resent them like some did.

Laurent continued to mutter, knowing that he thought more logically if he talked to himself, laying everything out, though he knew it made him appear a bit eccentric to the other doctors and staff. "Probably needs more building up. CT showed perfectly healthy womb, normal blood shunt, good endometrial wall, and he had very healthy donors. This BM should still be pregnant." Instead, Laurent thought, he's suffered a full-womb miscarriage.

The nurse cleared his throat. He was one of the two orderlies assigned to this BM they had labeled _Number 287_. People here wore as many hats as they had a talent for and he was currently wearing his second. "Uh, didn't you warn the Ob's staff that stress might be an inhibiting factor on the road to full term, Doctor Laurent?"

Nodding, "Certainly." He answered, still studying his patients' chart and lab results.

"Well, this guy had to be drugged during copulations -- it's marked in his chart. Phil DeSeur was his care-taker and he kinda' has a reputation for being . _. .rough_ with the preggies. This one had to be strapped down the whole time."

About DeSeur, Laurent had heard as much from some of the other members of his staff. And regarding the stress factor, the nurse was correct enough but his lecture had referred to prolonged stress. Laurent studied his prone patient, taking in his age and over-all physical condition and calculating the effects of his previous life on the streets. If the present stress were acute enough, and had been preceded by malnutrition (which in this BM's case, was true), and taking into account any illnesses or diseases he might have acquired but managed to fight off, full-womb miscarriages like the one this skinny BM had just experienced, might indeed occur.

If it were true about DeSeur, he would assign the orderly to another, more veteran, BM ward. "Thank you, nurse. I'll make a note of that." He looked down at the pale BM. No wonder some of them rebelled. Humans made into live-stock by the unluckiness of being cursed with Blue-eyes and tough survival instincts.

This BM was pale and clammy. And just nearing the end of an age where his body wouldn't so easily accept such drastic physical transformations and such heavy expectations on its already taxed systems without break-downs. The old and sick ought to be drinking tea and playing golf, not lying on a plastic sheet being weighed against resources solely for their breeding capabilities.

"Transfuse one unit of blood and start him on IV glucose until I say stop. Once he's awake, up his caloric intake by a third - and make sure he eats it all. Maybe we can get some flesh on those bones."

"Yes, Doctor." He was quietly hopeful DeSeur was being sent elsewhere. He felt sorry for Number 287 and wanted to protect him as far as his duty allowed.

Despite his attempts to calm his newest BM, during the copulations the poor old bastard cried the whole time.

XXX

Rory reported. "Your friend is undergoing treatment. He had a FMC and he'll need to be monitored for a few days." He had taken to slipping little bits of news to Chocolate and Pretty about their BM. Rory always tittered under Chocolate's handsome smile of thanks.

But today Pretty asked, "_FMC_? What's FMC?"

"Full-womb mis-carriage. He shed the entire sac." In answer to their shocked faces, Rory said, "I heard Laurent talking -- your BM's okay. Doc' thinks it's stress-related."

Pretty got over his shock at the very disturbing sound of Lover "shedding his womb sac", but his anxiety to see his friend won out over panic. "Maybe he needs to see a friendly face. Maybe if we just visit him, that might help. Laurent doesn't want him to get worse? Would he agree to that?"

Rory chewed his pencil. "I could sure run it by him. Maybe he'd transfer one of you to your preggies ward. Help him deal, keep an eye on him."

The best idea Pretty had heard in three months. "I'd be willing to adhere to any restrictions Laurent wants. I _just_ want to see my friend."

XXX

Laurent finally agreed to allow Pretty access to OB Level 2, where he said Number 287, "Lover" was situated, after he attended Laurents lecture. "You need to understand the scope of the work we're doing here."

The situation in fact was Lover in a bed among dozens of older BM's all in varying stages of pregnancy according to their charts. Pretty was given a far more detailed education on the weird and incredible nature behind male gestation.

He was one among a group of a dozen or so new interns and nurses, getting their first education on male pregnancy.

"Twelve days . . ." Laurent explained from a small podium, a series of anatomical diagrams and short strings of graphic endoscopic films flashed by on a screen behind him in a slow, smooth motion.

" . . .from the time period where multiple copulations are rendered, which can extend to several hours at least, to birth. Multiple donor sperm is necessary to assure multiple viable embryos. The birth itself is a miracle in its own right."

Laurent looked behind him, ensuring he was not jumping ahead of the pictures on display. "As you can see from Diagram 3.4, a BM's body, once it senses pregnancy, simply invents a birth canal from the underside of the abdominal womb to just below the scrotum. When there is no pregnancy, the canal itself exists as a sheath of fatty tissue encased in a thin but tough membrane that surrounds and protects the egg sac from the bodies other fluids. The blood supply and nutrients for the dividing cells are provided through an arterial shunt that extends from the ascending colon to the womb itself. At the base of this shunt is a similar membrane that excretes a sticky protein-based substance that captures the semen - and only the semen - pulling the sperm there-in across this barrier to be routed via the shunt to the womb."

Laurent turned a page but felt no need to consult his notes. "No blood, bowel fluids or other matter can cross this barrier. And no fecal matter, naturally, passes through the membrane or shunt to the sac, which would of course, contaminate it and cause fatal damage in the way of infection of the blastocysts or even tearing of the sac itself. The shunt leeches its food for the developing egg-cells from the nutrient rich blood supply already present in the intestines and large bowel. Once the birthing process is over and, Doctors, it is _just_ as painful for a male as it was for our females - _God keep them_ - , the BM's must birth the sac, unbroken, in its entirety through an opening no larger than the thickness of a straw. Once the birth is complete, the "straw" slips back inside the body and the wound that was its opening quickly heals over, leaving _no_ scar."

He looked over his attentive group, making sure all were paying close attention. To an eye-ball, they were. "This egg sac is then placed in filtered water by us until day twenty-eight. There after the fetuses are separated from one another and incubated artificially until maturity at seven months. And yes," Laurent spun to face them with a smattering of drama, "the fetuses mature more quickly than the old-fashioned way."

That elicited a small round of chuckles from most of those present.

Laurent mused aloud for his listeners. "Males becoming pregnant, carrying embryos around in their bellies, giving birth and those babies growing up under the false suns of lamp-light, warmth from electric generators and food from a continual soak in a nutrient-rich-gelatin-like bath. One would almost think the Universe knew that we didn't need God anymore."

Another soft round of laughter as Laurent went on speaking of BM's and sacs and eggs, omitting any mention what-so-ever that these were human beings conscripted into a life-time of perpetual baby-makers. To an eye-ball, Pretty was disgusted to note, the others in room appeared to agree. No seemed ruffled that people were being forced into physical slavery in its purest form.

Did they need children to save the human race? Yes.

Did they need to do it by brute force? Pretty doubted it. He believed many men, if not most, would volunteer to bring children into the world. Maybe even jump at the unique chance that in past times was the exclusive domain of women. If he himself were a Blue-Eye Mutation, he would probably give it a shot at least once.

A thought hit him with the force of a brick. He _would_ absolutely participate in bringing a baby out of Lover from his own body fluid. Suddenly the idea became physical, leaving him light-headed and breathless. At the image of Lover pregnant with his child, he was struck with an over-powering lust. And a heart near to breaking that Lover was still beyond his reach.

Pretty took a series of deep breaths to calm his libido and recognized the powerful way nature had turned a sharp corner, traveling down a new sexual route to pro-creation, dragging Browns and Blues helplessly along. Even thinking about Lover pregnant because of his semen, his sex, his cock, his body, caused his penis to dance and twitch in his jeans.

Pretty was astounded. It seemed they had all mutated a little. Blue Eyes were the givers of life and Browns were the panting hyenas looking for any Blue to rub against. He felt like a teenager cursed, as all teenage boys usually are, with the urge to spread his seed as far and as fast as possible. Nature finds a way indeed. His cock was obediently stiff.

Most of the BM's seemed consigned to their new role. They were warm and well fed. They even had a sort of social circle where-in their new conditions were discussed. Some had a passable life. But that life was enjoyed under threats and with no hope of change or anything different. Their choice had been taken away.

This is what Lover was enduring. This is the life that had been chosen for him. Instead of being a slave to the elements and hunger, suffering for them but living in relative freedom, he was laboring in the quiet, well fed wards of the Birthing-Yards. He was a resource. Chattel.

_They may as well staple a tag to his ear. _

Laurent removed his glasses and polished one of the lenses. "It is, gentlemen, an un-precedented mutation - or evolution if you prefer, and could very well be the savior of the human race."

The doctor appeared to have wrapped up his lengthy speech, sitting down on a stool behind the podium. The assistant who had run the visuals turned the lights back up.

Laurent opened the floor. "I have time for a few questions, Doctors, if you have any?"

Pretty raised his hand, waiting for Laurent to acknowledge him.

When he did, "How many of the BM's - the _men_ - are impregnated by brute force?" Pretty asked. He couldn't help himself. "How many of these _men_ are giving us babies by being raped?"

XXX

After he finished his first days' assigned round, Pretty returned to his own ward to eat a standard issue dinner and sleep on the single bed beside Chocolate. Chocolate was anxious to learn what Pretty had found out during his first rotation on the Birthing-Levels.

"Only one ward on one level, actually, and then only a section of that. There are hundreds of BM's. I've been assigned as General Physician to a single dozen."

Chocolates' face fell a little. "No sign of-?"

Pretty shook his head. "I made a mistake."

"Oh? What mistake?"

"I alluded to Laurent that by forcibly impregnating them, they were all but raping the BM's."

"What did Laurent say?"

"Not much." Pretty said. "He coughed." Pretty lay down on his bed, "He said a few words about _sacrifices_ from everyone and _adaptions_ that must be made for survival and some _unpleasantness_ was to be expected under present conditions."

"He side-stepped it."

"Yeah. But he's going to allow me to see Lover tomorrow. I put in a good word for you, too."

"Thanks. The bad news is, on top of my doctor duty, they want me to begin "contributing." Chocolate used little bunny quotes in the air in conjunction with the last word. "I'm supposed to report to the Copulation Ward after my shift."

"Copulation huh?"

"I think it's code talk for, "This is where we rape the BM's, but calling it that would be crass."

"Maybe you can look for Lover."

Chocolate sighed. "I'll try."

XXX

Part VII ASAP.


	7. Chapter 7

Gone With the World

--

Part VII

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains implied RAPE SCENES and commentary. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu **_

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"I _refuse_ to force myself on someone."

Rory sighed. "Look. Every healthy male is required to contribute at some point." He had guided Chocolate to the Copulation Ward with a tolerant face. Chocolate went along in the hopes of locating Lover and finding out if he was all right. _Really_ all right, not the "viable" label that the Brown-Eyed-In-Charge found an acceptable enough _all right_ for their more recalcitrant blue-eyed property.

Rory reassured him. "Look, there are only a hand-full of BM's who refuse to volunteer. Most like the pampering, the food, the comf'y beds -"

Chocolate interrupted, "- being nothing more than a physical host for the hundreds of offspring they'll never get to see, sired by multiple fathers who's only concern is repeatedly mounting what is to them nothing but a faceless sperm receptacle and getting their rocks off as much as possible." Chocolate said facetiously. "Yeah, for the BM's, I'm sure it's _paradise_."

Rory lead Chocolate to a sterile room at the end of "PR" - _Propagation Reception_. This was the _prior_ area, where sires received their "assignments" and signed a waiver stating they gave up all claim to the embryos and would never demand to see their own offspring. The ward adjacent to it, through yet more security doors, was "ICW" or _Intra_ - the copulation ward, where dozens of little rooms containing beds or gurneys, supplied with or without restraints, were occupied through-out the day by BM's and sires. Other than for cleaning and sterilizing, the rooms were almost never empty, being used by any assigned BM's - those who had reached estrus. For most, estrus occurred every fifteen to twenty days from copulation to conception to birth to recovery. The average survival rate for embryos to the fetus stage was about a third. To the baby stage, a third of that.

Recovery from the impregnation ward was yet another area, the "PCW" - Post Copulation Ward, where BM's were housed until it could be determined whether they had become pregnant. Most, after a dozen or so donors, usually were at some level, either with a few dividing cells or hundreds, depending on their health, age, mutation-level and other factors.

Chocolate thought with dismay that the new government still loved their anagrams, locks and paranoia.

Chocolate asked, "Where are all these children being raised? If this has been going on for, I'm guessing, maybe a year, and you have several hundred BM's from all over the state - "

"- actually, we cater to six different east coast states."

"Six then. So there must be a few thousand children by now. Who's raising them? Where are they getting schooled? Who teaches them about fairness, equality and ethics? I sure as hell hope it isn't _you_ people."

"Sorry. That's all classified." Rory showed him into a waiting area. Once the two efficient male nurses checked his BP, heart-rate, and blood gases, he was handed a paper gown and instructed to change into it. Once he had complied Rory returned and lead him down to the CW, stopping in front of a secure door. "Here we are." He announced cheerfully.

Chocolate crossed his arms in defiance. "Even if I go in, I'm still not cooperating. I still have ethics and a little common sense too. I have no intention of screwing a complete stranger."

Punching in a code to the doors locking system, Rory smiled mysteriously. "Laurent arranged a surprise for you."

Chocolate frowned and entered. Turning to see his human receptacle for the evening, he muttered, "I'll plant my free dick in a strapped down slave when hell freezes ov-"

Staring back at him from the gurney was Lover. House. Thankfully not lying on a gurney this time, but a more comfortable looking single bed, but still strapped down and immobilized.

Rory said, almost embarrassed at the sight of one of Chocolates' mates hog tied. "Sorry about the straps. Laurent insists when the BM's aren't guarded. Or when they . . .resist, like he does. " Rory stepped out into the hallway and said while swinging the door shut, "You have eight hours."

Chocolate turned, "Wait a second. Why did Laurent arrange this? He doesn't do anything if it's not for the program."

Rory took a single step back into the room and said softly. "Well, maybe _someone_ mixed up the charts?" He gave Chocolate a telling wink and left.

From inside Chocolate could hear the electronic locks sealing him in. He supposed they'd decided that until he "served" the BM, they wouldn't let him out. Rory had gone above and beyond and conspired to circumvent protocol just this once. He tucked that thought away. Rory could prove useful to them later on.

Chocolate quickly moved to Lovers' side. "Hey" He leaned in close so Lover could see his face clearly. Outraged at the restraints that had him trussed up like a baked turkey, Chocolate saw they were simple belt and buckle type. Simple but effective and they had positioned him so Lovers' legs were jack-knifed and the straps pulled tight to keep them there. His ass was exposed to accommodate the dozens of sires Chocolate knew would, or had, already been in the room taking their grunting pleasure of him.

He gave Lover a quick visual examination, paying particular attention to his lower quarters. If Lover had been abused recently, Rory had obviously sent someone in to clean him up. Chocolates' physicians eye noticed, though, Lovers' dilated pupils. He swallowed, fury swarming in his stomach like angry wasps. "The son-of-a-bitches have got you doped up." He knew why. Because Lover had resisted, had fought back. But comprehending their reasons for the needle didn't mean he hated them any less.

Lover had tried to preserve his freedom of choice but at no time in history had slaves been given a choices. Only commands and punishment.

Chocolate took Lovers' face in his hands and turned it so his stoned friend would more easily find his face. "Hey." He whispered softly. "How are you?" _Stupid question. _"Feeling okay? Any more bleeding? Any cramping?"

Lover just stared back, eyes glazed over with a narcotic cocktail that assured his cooperation. Chocolate bit his lip. "Babe', we're working on a plan to get you out of here. You just gotta hang on for a while. Okay?"

Lover fumbled with his restrained wrists, trying to touch Chocolate's gown. Instead Chocolate took his hand in his own and squeezed. "See? I'm okay. Me and Pretty are here. We'll find a way." He unhooked Lovers' wrist restraints and completely removed the leg straps, his hands working quickly and furiously. Lover eased his legs back down straightening and stretching the sluggish muscles, gasping at the answering cramps.

Lover opened his mouth and a rasping squeak emerged. Chocolate did not fail to note his cracked lips and paler than usual complexion. "You're not doing very well, are you?" He whispered, taking a few moments to check the pulse at his throat and peer as well as he was able without proper light into the depths of his ocean-blues so he might determine brain function. Lastly, with the hard buckle of one of the restraints, he checked Lovers' reflexes at his wrists and knees, and ankles, noting that his breathing was even and regular.

But such a cursory examination couldn't rule out nausea, pain or pregnancy.

Lover squeezed Chocolates' hand, enough to make Chocolate wince. A good sign that his strength was intact.

Lover spoke a few breathless words. "Stress. . . stressed . . .cage. Rats. So . . .s-s-ick."

Chocolate nodded. "I know. You're like a rat in a cage." He felt his forehead. "No fever at least."

Lover shook his head back and forth, trying to fight the drugs in his system and wake his brain up enough to speak again. "No. . . .no-no . . rats. Struh-stressed cage."

Chocolate took his face between his palms again. "Hey, calm down. Calm down. Just rest for now."

Lover looked at him, though heavily sedated, he was clearly in distress.

Chocolate said, trying to comfort and calm him, "I don't know if Laurent can be reasoned with but if not, at least now we know exactly where you are. Pretty and I can work on a way to get you out of here. Maybe even tonight."

Lover shook his head even more frantically, but he was slipping quickly into unconsciousness. "No. Stay . .stay or'they'll . . .sen'nother'sire. . .in." His unfocused eyes pleaded. "With you . . . s'okay, no'forced . . .i'izn't rape. . . .izn't rape . . ." he passed out.

Chocolate put his head down on the mattress and tried to get his breathing and heart-rate under control, so enraged that he wanted to kill somebody over what they had put Lover through and were still intending to put him through until he produced what they demanded. Until he was too old to be of any more use to them.

Lover said they would bring in another sire if he, Chocolate, left and he had no reason to believe otherwise. Enslaved and in a cage not-with-standing, Lover was still his partner. His and Prettys'. If it was going to be anyone who . . ._planted_ anything in him, if Lover was going to be forced into carrying babies, at least the sire-sperm would not be from a strangers' body. The resulting embryos, if they survived, would be his. Would be _theirs._

At least genetically.

Chocolate stripped off his gown, climbed onto the bed and lay down beside Lover, pulling up the thin sheet and blanket to cover them both and cradling Lover in his arms. Chocolate had no intention of mounting him like a horny dog. He would hold him, touch him and make sure he knew he was not alone. And when Lover woke up, they would make love. Not the clutching, greedy physical release that passed for intimacy in this state-run baby farm, but the loving exchanges that two lovers shared.

Chocolate lay very still and listened to Lovers' breathing and his own. A little while later Lover awoke, lucid enough to understand, and either accept or reject, what was happening.

Chocolate drew him into a full body caress, kissing him, touching him all over with soft strokes. Lover accepted, kissing back.

Chocolate touched and kissed for a long time eventually mounting him with incredible tenderness, slowly and luxuriously, all the while mumbling in his ear how much he loved him, and how he and Pretty were going to escape with him. They made love for hours.

For eight hours, nobody interrupted.

-

-

-

After the eight hours had passed, though, someone did and this time not a helpful and pleasant nurse like Rory, but two large beefy looking orderlies who handed Chocolate his clothes and ordered him out. "You're done. Go." Were their only words to him.

Slipping on his jeans and shirt in the hall, Chocolate hated like hell to have to leave Lover behind, but at the moment the gorillas in people costumes were giving him no choice. He watched them urge Lover off the bed and lead him away down the hall. At least they weren't being rough.

On his way back to his own ward and Pretty, Chocolate spotted Doctor Laurent approaching a sealed door leading to the Labs - where no one was allowed except those with the highest level of clearance. Chocolate sprinted to catch him before he could pass through. "Laurent!"

The doctor turned. "Doctor Foreman isn't it?" His body language said he had no time to spare for chit-chat.

"I'd like to talk to you about Lover."

"Who?"

"BM number 287. He's the friend who was brought here ahead of us. He's on the Fifty Plus ward."

"Yes? What about him?"

"Look, he used to be - he _is_ a doctor also - a Diagnostician. We used to work together, his name was Gregory House-"

"-I'm in a large hurry, Foreman, what's your point? We have enough doctors and there is nothing to diagnose."

"What about the high percentages of miscarriages?"

"They're slowly coming down and we have OB's on staff taking care of it."

"House could help. He's a genius and, by the way, a _human being."_

"-He's a _BM_."

"He's being _forced_ into sex, into pregnancy-"

"-he's no different than hundreds of others here. Some were architects, Doctor Foreman, politicians, bar-tenders, school-teachers, we have one Navy Seal who just gave birth to his fifteenth sac - we have a _senator_ for Christ's sake. Every one of them is in the Propagation program. There are no abstainers when the world is ending."

"My friend is old, he's not well, he's in pain -"

"-Do you know how many sob stories I hear every time we bring in a new batch? Yours doesn't even make runner-up."

"You're confining people, enslaving them_, _sometimes _raping_ them. Can't you see how wrong this is??"

"Doctor Foreman." Laurent fixed him with a patronizing smile. "We all have a story. We've all lost someone. Some of us whole families and we all know the situation isn't ideal."

Laurent sighed and looked at his shoes. "Look - do you know what the survival rate is right now for those cells strong enough to make it to the real, live baby stage?" He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

Chocolate did not have it but still he glared defiantly.

"Well, let me spell it out for you. We house just under three hundred BM's here. At a conception rate of just a hand-full to several dozen cells merging with donor sperm, several _million _sperm per donor is necessary _- that's_ why the multiple couplings - only thirty percent of the those growing blastocytes make it to the embryonic and then fetus stage. So we have three hundred BM's birthing twice a month an average of twenty-four embryos per labor. Of those, twenty-five percent - and I'm being generous - become babies and of _those_, less than half are female. How many female babies would you guess make it passed the diaper stage?" He asked testily and paused for effect. "Roughly sixteen percent. The government is spending close to a third of its current budget on this project."

Laurent turned back to the door and punched in his code, covering his hand so Chocolate couldn't see. "You do the math, doctor," Laurent challenged. "All this planning, feeding, work, labor, prayer! - for just over one hundred female babies per year in this entire facility who can grow up enough to be considered beyond danger, and that's only if we _don't_ see genetic anomalies in them later to squelch the whole project, or if the virus that killed them all, and most of the BE's, to begin with doesn't decide to mutate and finish the job. Not to mention the miscarriages among the BM's, which reduce that final number again."

Laurent paused, taking a deep, settling breath. "I imagine your friend is suffering somewhat but if we continue in our work, if we continue to produce two or three dozen embryos per BM per month per facility, maybe, just maybe, it won't be for nothing."

Chocolate tried another approach. That of offering suggestions, alternatives. It was what he used to do with Lover, back when the world still had options and hope. "You could set people up in, I don't know communities some how, let them fall in love, become families - have children when they're _ready_ to. Given the choice to say yes or no, I'm betting a lot would say yes." Chocolate knew it sounded naive. It probably was. He wondered how many other facilities like Laurents were in operation across North America.

Last night, making love to his mate, to House, everything had seemed optimistic. Hope and dreams rose in his body just as surely as his risen penis thrust itself into Lover over and over. Things just felt like they would be okay as long as he had his mates within reach and a vision only temporarily out of.

In the cold light of dawn, it seemed foolish now. Orgasm talk. _Trust the sex drive to cloud clear thought._

Laurent was tiring of the arguments he had heard from the former mates of dozens of BM's already on site. "Right. I'll go arrange a Sock-Hop so people can dance, pair off and park in Lover's Lane." He gestured between them with a chopping motion, to drive home to the latest Brown-eyed do-gooder that what he suggested was impossible. To cut the man's theories down like most everyone's hopes had already been. "We don't have the resources to spread this project across half of America. We have a stable but limited power supply for transportation, labs, food, water, heat - _everything_. We send these people back out into the Rough to scavenge food, fight the gangs, cannibals and the wild dogs, and a lot of them are going to end up malnourished, sick or dead. The numbers for viable children are already precarious, so don't talk to me about white picket fences and a two car garage. In case you didn't notice, those days - that American life - is _over."_

Chocolate saw his point. He hated him. He hated the facility and the role they claimed Lover was obligated to play in it, the roles they all were, but still he saw Laurents point. Chocolate was skirting defeat by the barrage of logic and necessity behind Laurents argument and it made his heart sink.

Through-out human history, survival had sometimes become too much to ask of people. And though it was too much, survival still made its demands. To act was often too much to bear but to live meant do the act and bear it because there was no other way and no one to complain to. "My friend deserves more than to be tied down and raped for his fruit of the womb." Chocolate said, his stomach knotting at the thought that Laurent and his government were probably, if not wholly right then mostly right.

Still, "Doctor Laurent, I'm not blind to the need for more children, particularly female. Like you said, this mutation might only be nature's stop-gap measure, but I'm pretty sure leaders other than yourself have made a similar speech when their way of life was threatened."

"I'm Hitler, huh?" Laurent smiled. "I've often heard that speech too. The human race, Doctor Foreman, is at best one generation away from dying out. 287's value as a BM far outweighs his use as a doctor." Laurent turned from him and slipped through the door. "I'm sorry."

Chocolate wanted to protest that the price was just too high. A section of human life - human beings marked as different or whose bodies were labeled indispensable, no matter they were few in number - could not be suddenly decreed as cattle and have it adopted by the masses as best policy. People should not be herded into dormitories and laboratories and then required to turn their bodies over to humanity to host the spawning of everyone's future but their own.

Chocolate walked back to his ward, trying to figure out what he was going to say to Pretty. He hadn't quite given up. Not yet. But unless they could escape, or somehow devise and implement a workable option for Laurent and his government backers, staying at the facility might be their only, wisest choice.

For those who by law still possessed it.

XXX

Part VIII ASAP


	8. Chapter 8

Gone With the World

--

Part VIII

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains implied RAPE SCENES and commentary. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu **_

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"I wonder what he meant?" Chocolate leaned against Prettys' mattress, arms crossed, puzzling aloud to him.

Pretty was sitting on the same mattress, feet drawn up, arms hugging his boney knees, thinking about Lover and feeling some sharp jealousy (and guilt for the jealousy) over the time Chocolate had been granted to spend with him. "You're sure he's okay?" He asked Chocolate for what must have been the tenth time.

Chocolate answered just as patiently as he had the first nine times. "Yes, as good as expected, but . . ."

Pretty sat up straighter, catching the single note of doubt. "But what?"

Chocolate shook his head as though to dispel something unimportant. "Lover said something. It didn't make sense. I mean, he was out of it, doped up, but he talked about rats and cages and how stressed he was. I guess it makes sense he'd be pacing the bars by now. Other than trips to the lab' and to sleep in the common ward, he's almost never let out of there."

"How stressed is he?" Pretty knew how much the stress level was affecting Lover along with many of the other BM's, particularly those passed physical prime and at greater risk for ill effects. Laurent had often lamented the miscarriages that were occurring though he had assured him the numbers for lost sacs were slowly dropping.

"I think he was better after I left him." Chocolate said non-specifically. "We had almost a whole night. I think I helped him feel safer, maybe -- I _hope."_

Pretty imagined Chocolate and Lover together, wishing he could have been there. Wishing he would be granted his time with his first and foremost cherished mate. Pretty noticed Chocolate staring and tried to focus his mind on the moment at hand. He recognized with gratitude, however, that Chocolate was far less prone to petty jealousy than he was.

But trying to shake Lover from his mind was almost impossible. And any image of a strange male thrusting his engorged cock enthusiastically into Lovers body, the mere contemplation of the idea, cut in him a heart-deep wound. Fury would wash through him and then die an early death because of his inability to act. The sensation always left him sick and hopeless. "Are you on duty tonight?"

Chocolate shook his head.

Pretty looked over and quietly asked, "Please sleep with me tonight."

Chocolate knew it was risky. Their beds were in an open ward to purposely discourage such behavior, they could get caught and each re-assigned to other areas. But if they were quiet, if they were careful . . . Chocolate smiled a little. To be with Pretty, almost any risk was worth it. "Absolutely."

-

-

-

Pretty wanted Chocolate under him this time and Chocolate complied without hesitation. He read it in his eyes, understanding Prettys' need without misconception. Pretty rolled over on top of Chocolates beautifully muscled body and hard, substantial cock.

They were beneath the covers, doing their mutual best to control breathing and noise and flesh to make as little noise as possible so as not alert their sleeping neighbors, still hoping to derive as much enjoyment and fulfillment from each others sexual ministrations as possible under the restricted circumstances.

Chocolate looked up at Pretty and saw his want. "Close your eyes," He whispered, "and picture him." Chocolate craned his neck to kiss his lips. "Imagine his face." He cupped Prettys ass in two strong hands and squeezed, kneading gently, encouraging arousal. "Tonight when you look at me, see only Lover."

Pretty stared down, so grateful for Chocolates insight and sympathy for his need, he almost wanted to weep. Pretty closed his eyes and kissed Chocolate very tenderly on the lips, grinding his pelvis into his in slow circles, and all but coming at the heady mental image of Lover lying under him, ready and waiting with shimmering blues half lidded, dilated with desire, wanting and anxious for him. Needing Pretty just as badly as Pretty needed him.

Chocolate raised thickly muscled legs and wrapped them high up around Prettys back. Pretty groaned softly, felt for and found Chocolates entrance and with cock slicked with saliva, thrust himself slowly into Chocolates body until he was swallowed up. Chocolates hot tightness lured him to a moment of stillness, floating with the tight heaven of Chocolates muscles clamped around his cock. Pretty thought he could even feel the slight pulse of Chocolates heartbeat against the head of his penis.

A sudden clenching of Chocolates anus around his base spurred him to action and he began plunging himself into Chocolate/Lovers depths with deliberate regularity, right to the hilt, again and again, letting the imagery of Lover's perfectly beautiful sky-painted eyes, shiny with lust looking up at him, begging for more. Always more and more, pleading to be covered and sexually consumed by Pretty. He imagined Lovers' rumbling tenor speaking softly to him with tender words and sweet moans of delight, giving himself to his mate without reservation or contrary thought.

Pretty hung on to the picture of Lovers' magnificent eyes and gently expressive face, feeling the swelling need of his own cock, getting harder every second, his balls tightening up in preparation to send everything he had deep into Lovers body. He would shoot his whole being into him, fuck him until he was empty and Lover was full.

Just the thought that he could get Lover pregnant made his cock spasm and twitch, a gasp escaping clenched teeth. He wanted Lovers' body to overflow with his cum. He was going to knock him up -- _must_ fuck him -- _had to_! He would _die_ if he didn't.

"_Oh, g-o-o-od-d . . ." _Pretty purred into Chocolate/lovers ear, pounding his cock home faster and faster, harder and harder until Chocolate-but-Lover groaned beneath him, clenching around him, whispering tiny encouraging words into his ear, "Come on, baby. Come on . . . fuck me. Fuck me so much-I-love-you-I-fucking-love-you-do-it-God - just _DO it!"_ Chocolate/Lover fist-stroked himself in rhythm with Prettys movements.

Pretty pounded him as hard as he could, forgetting where he was and who might be listening. It didn't matter. "I'm going to get you so fucking pregnant," he hissed into his ear, "take my fuck you sweet hot ass!" He growled and grinded himself into Chocolate/Lovers hole, his cock iron stiff as iron, thrilled -- almost quivering in disbelief that it was actually inside him wholly naked, semen flooding and ready, pushing at the door. It was going to quench Lovers insides and change the nature of his body around itself. Prettys cock ached in its anxiety to alter Lovers' physical make-up.

Heady, possessive, sexually insane words spun around in Prettys mind like a storm funnel. Ever more urgent and needy, his cock harder and harder without end, Prettys mind screamed at him, making demands - _Get him pregnant! Fuck him. Fuck him harder. Harder! Faster! Fuck him until he moans and begs and babbles, until he whimpers, until he says yes to every demand. Until he knows you are the only one allowed. Make sure he knows it through and through that its your cock and sex and cum and fucking that has passage, that had him and left him changed. Tell him he belongs to you by planting your cock and shooting your seed so deep it will never leave. Knock him up! Faster. Harder. Hurry! Fuck him-o-fuck-him-boneless-fuck-him-moremore- __**more! **_

Pretty fantasized humping him for endless hours, all night long - never stopping. "I'm going to fuck you so goddamn hard. I'm going to _so_ knock you up, you won't know yourself. You're going to get every last bit of my cum. I'm going to get you pregnant and keep you that way every goddamn day of your life. Oh, _fuck_, Lover, oh baby, oh sweet sexy Lover . . ."

Pretty fucked Chocolate/Lover until he thought his mind might freeze in place and his balls explode. He came hard, biting his lip at the intensity of the orgasm, but still a high pitched whine escaped his lips and he screamed into the bed covers, so desperate to fill sweet writhing, willing Lover with his fluid, he pumped madly until he had to be empty. He pumped until Lover was full and there remained no room ever for any other cock or cum. No one else _ever._

Pretty saw Chocolate's lips move and felt it as he orgasm-ed, his warm semen shooting between the skin of their hard pressing abdomens. Chocolates lips moved but all Pretty heard in his ear was Lovers' sweet groan of absolute sexual compliance. He remembered his own semen shooting into Lover like a water cannon. He fantasized Lover pregnant with his babies and laying there, moments later, succulent, waiting for Pretty fuck him again, eager for his cock, over and over forever.

The vision made Petty gasp and moan again into Chocolates ear and finally he collapsed, exhausted on the hot body beneath him, both their torsos slick with sweat.

Chocolate kissed his cheek and rubbed a hand across his back. "He misses you bad." He whispered into Prettys' ear.

Pretty felt his heart break a bit as he rolled off Chocolate. He grabbed Chocolates hand and kissed the back of it. "I love you both," He swallowed his grief because there was no room for it in the glorified prison in which they were living, "but if anything happens to him, I'll die."

XXX

A day later Rory brought them a message. "He's pregnant." Then he smiled directly at Chocolate. "Congratulations daddy."

First Chocolate felt shock run through him like a lightening strike. Then, almost instantly, a mind altering wave of warm pride and joy swept over him. "He . . ? My... it's - they're mine? I mean, I got him . .?"

Rory chuckled a bit. "Ho boy, did you ever. You knocked him _seriously _up." Rory handed each of them a special assistant physicians pass to pin to their lovely paper over-alls. "Laurent has signed off on both your cases. You can both visit him daily - in between his assigned times that is."

Pretty knew those last cryptic words meant in between when other men assigned to fuck Lover were in there on top of him, humping for all they were worth, trying their mightiest to add to the number of blastocytes in his tender under-belly. Pretty suddenly experienced a terrible jealous rage over that but stifled it lest he screw up again by flapping his mouth and ruining his chances to finally see Lover.

"How is he physically?" He asked to distract himself from his minds rolling images of other men on top of Lover. "Any symptoms of miscarriage? Pain? Cramping? Bleeding?"

Rory shook his head. "None so far, Laurent says. But it's only been two days."

As Rory lead them to Lovers locked room, Pretty breathless with anxiety over Lovers condition. Chocolate was a tad quieter than usual though inside he was beaming ear to ear.

Pretty asked him as they walked, "Laurent must have matched your profile to Lovers."

"Yeah." Chocolate dropped his voice lower. "We should ask him about yours."

Pretty nodded. He intended to.

-

-

-

Lover was perched on the edge of his bed. Sitting up. He wasn't strapped down or drugged or even sleeping and turned to look when they entered.

Pretty all but sprinted to the bed and wrapped his arms around him. Lover seemed stunned to see him and hugged back hesitantly, as though he were experiencing a hallucination. Pretty kissed him on the lips. Pretty whispered in his ear "Oh, babe'." and couldn't make himself let go. But finally he loosened his grip and stepped back.

Lover lowered his eyes to the floor, as though uncomfortable with the scrutiny, then he let escape an involuntary, ironic laugh, "Waddya' say we all get outta here?"

Pretty touched Lovers face, drawing a finger over a sharp cheek bone and across down-turned lips. They all knew, at the present time, that leaving was impossible. "We've been speaking to Laurent. He isn't willing to lose any BM - I mean any Blue Eyes. But we'll keep trying. There must be something, some way to convince - "

"-Stressed cages." Lover said. Chocolate stepped closer and instinctively rested a hand on Lovers' forearm. "You said that before." As he spoke, his large brown eyes never left Lovers abdomen.

Lover stared curiously at Chocolates arm as he spoke. "A study I read before all the shit came down, pre-Outbreak. Rats in a stressed environment will mis-carry sixty-four percent of the time. Change the cage, reduce the stress, that number drops."

"Laurent says they're aware of the effects of stress. They're doing what they can to reduce it."

Lover huffed. "Aware, yes. Laurent's an idiot. I'm not a rat. Putting new curtains and a philodendron in my cage isn't going to make me happier. You can't wallpaper away human misery."

"You're saying a huge change is needed." Pretty said. "Perfect sense and I'm in. Only Laurent knows that if he lets the BM's - lets these _men_ go - the survival rate of the babies drops because the survival rate of the blue-eyes drop."

Chocolate hated the numbers but they were essentially correct. He wanted Lover to live. He wanted those babies inside Lover - _his_ babies - to survive. "We would have no where to go. No where safe."

"Laurent may have no choice but to start farming out the program. If the study was right, the miscarriages are only going to increase. And if I'm right, this drop in losses he keeps talking about is just a blip."

Without warning Chocolate placed his left palm flat on Lovers lower abdomen, staring at the place where beneath skin and tissue dozens of his tiny babies were growing and waiting for their turn at life. "I . . don't want to lose even one of these. They're ours." He said to Lover, his deep brown eyes lovingly staring at Lovers. "I want them. As badly as I want you, I want _them_."

Lover looked at Chocolate's strong hand, he seemed a little embarrassed at his altered, more delicate physical status but also understood Chocolates instinct to protect him and them. He felt much the same way and he suspected it was because the babies, at least some of them, that he was carrying inside his body _were_ Chocolates. He already recognized within himself strong evolutionary instincts asserting themselves to protect his offspring at any cost.

But survival on his own terms required action and as things were, they were all three being blown by fate and the decisions of others. "Since Laurent seems to think I'm more use as a sperm receptacle than a diagnostician, I want you to take my theory to him. Make him listen to it. If I'm right, this time I won't miscarry, but others still will, and more of them as time goes on."

"Why do you believe you won't mis-carry this time?"

Lover looked at Chocolate, blushing with a tiny smile of mystery then he applied his physicians' blade sharp brain to task, "Because they're yours."

XXX

Laurent granted them one hour of his valuable time and Chocolate and Pretty were determined to make it worth his while. Lover had explained in detail his theory and it was sound. They knew from a history with the man as a physician he was almost without exception correct in his medical reasoning.

"The BE's began to mutate as their bodies adapted and became immune to the virus." Chocolate explained. "Most of the BE's were mating and staying within a small circle of Brown eyed males, men with whom they regularly had sex. Body fluids were exchanged: semen, sweat, saliva, blood, salt tears, even bowel and uric acid. Lover won't miscarry those babies because _I_ mated with him. It was _my_ semen, sweat blood and spit that entered him. We're adapted to each other to pro-create. His cells recognize mine and accepted them."

Laurent had doubt on his face but he was still listening.

Pretty furthered the point they were trying to make. "This is pure evolutionary adaption to environment. During the processes of mutation, Lovers body was utilizing Chocolate's fluids, and mine, preparing his body for pregnancy based on the DNA in our sex cells - our sperm. He's perfectly adapted to carrying our children. A strangers semen, no matter how healthy they are, has a high risk of being rejected."

"So this is simply a matter of evolutionary genetics?" Laurent clarified. "If so, all we need to do is collect the semen and administer it to the appropriate BM based on with whom the BM had been sexually active prior to coming here."

Lover said Laurent would make that observation so Pretty had Lovers response ready. "It's not that simple. Bodily environment is half the equation. Surroundings is the other half. You keep these men locked up, some of them strapped down, you'll continue to see miscarriages. But give them what evolution gave to humans a brain that can choose - let them live and grow within what evolution demands as a healthy environment - and you'll see those numbers drop like a rock. Give them some freedom. Give them choice. Let them be with the men who they became adapted to and maybe who they fell in love with. Emotion and thinking, belief, can dramatically influence whether someone stays well or gets worse. It isn't scientific, but as a doctor, you know it's true."

Chocolate added. "These BM's are rats in cages. The cages have to go."

Laurent considered their words. "This is conjecture, almost pure conjecture. I need evidence. I need lab's and trial studies. I need proof before I propose that the Presidents Medical Advisor release the BM's to the Rough and put at risk man kinds only hope to survive."

"We're not suggesting you open the doors and let them walk. We're saying farm out the project. Different facilities to care for the different stages of the childrens development. But give them men homes and privacy - some measure of family and happiness first. We know the kids have to be dormed because of the sheer numbers, we get that. But grant free access for the parents too and a life beyond being a must-have product for the world. The BM's - all of us - need to be _people _again, not just humans."

Laurent rubbed a thumb over his lip. "It'd still be taking a big risk. I'd have to convince layers of government, and their financial backers. I'd have to have reasonable projections in place and demonstrative proof that your BM is right. How do we get that?"

Chocolate felt, for the first time in a while, a fraction of hope. "A test farm. Twenty groups - those with whom the BM's had been sexually active on the outside, prior to being herded here. Send out a message for those brown-eyes to come in. Arrange a seperate facility where they can set up some kind of normal life with their blues. Where they can have their privacy and dinner, maybe even hobbies. And sex. Let them live and love. You'll get your babies."

Laurent straightened, sighing heavily. "I can't make a move until Lover gives birth. If he's okay, if the kids, specifically yours, are fine, we do the labs to confirm his hypothesis. We wait until the babies have reached the embryonic stage healthy and intact with every sign they will remain so. And we do the labs on why the rest, the embryos that are not yours, didn't. We take those findings to the governments Central Council of Physicians, and let them check our findings. They'll want to do their own labs. They might even insist on their own experiments. You think your BM is willing to do that? Go under the scope, even the knife if necessary, to prove his theory?"

Pretty answered, "I think so, and his name is Lover or, if you prefer, Doctor House."

Laurent nodded, allowing himself suitable chastisement. "Okay. 287 - I mean Lover - should be giving birth in less than eight days. I'll prepare the lab's and the geneticists, inform them of the theory, let them know what we'll be doing, and we'll go from there." he held up a hand to stop any premature feelings of triumph. "But I can't make any promises."

Chocolate and Pretty nodded. That Laurent even listened was more than they hoped.

Laurent read their expressions. They were secretly rejoicing, but the future came at a cost. He understood that as well as anyone. "My son in the propagation program. Has been since the beginning. My eyes are amber and my wifes were blue as are my sons. He has miscarried almost every pregnancy." Laurent swallowed hard and said very quietly, "He tells me," Laurents eyes were anguished, "he's tired. He tells me he's unhappy."

With his lab coat, Laurent wiped his glasses clean. "I'll contact the President first thing tomorrow." he waved them off. "Why don't you go . . .be with your man tonight."

Laurent watched them walk away and turned in the direction of the hall and entrance to Propagation level. It was time he visited. He had not seen his son for five weeks.

XXX

Part IV ASAP


	9. Chapter 9

Gone With the World

--

Part IX

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains implied RAPE SCENES and commentary. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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"This will take years, you realize, to implement?" Laurent explained.

Chocolate and Pretty assured him they understood. "Will you begin to arrange better accommodations for established families?"

Laurent had already done so, but warned, "These initial alterations are solely under my authority and my ass, by the way, is the only one on the line." He relented, "But I happen to think your BM's - your friends theory holds some water. Don't expect too much too fast. The government actually managed not to be caught standing around with their collective thumb up its ass when the scary numbers started rolling after Outbreak. Changing things at this delicate stage is a dice game."

But Laurent implemented what changes he safely could and those whom had been together prior to be brought to the Facility and wished to stay together were moved to more private, though modest, living quarters. Lover and his mates because it was his theory (though Laurent warned them that was the only concession he would make. All other couplets or groups would be chosen from among the young), and nineteen other breeding groups.

By Laurents desire to stick as closely to the original program as possible (and to assuage any suspicion on the Medical Communities part that he was foraging off on his own unorthodox pet research), those that were breeding pairs were matched with a third young, newly sexually mature male in the hopes that such ones would bring no genetic abnormalities or diseases to the BM and that his body might naturally adapt to the new, untried stud.

Chocolate, Pretty and Lover were assigned to a tight two room abode with a bedroom in which a queen sized bed filled almost all of it, and a slightly larger kitchen/living area. The kitchen was in name only. Running water and a kettle for simple things as tea and coffee with weekly rations of sugar and whitener. No dairy cream or other foodstuffs or unauthorized cooking was allowed anywhere in the facility. Bathrooms by comparison to the suites two rooms, were almost vast. Commodes were for common use, each shared by six such apartments and scrubbed twice daily by a strict schedule of workers chosen from within the breeding groups.

Other than pregnant BM's, no exceptions were granted as to labor allotment. Since most BM's were almost always either pregnant or being mated to get them so, few BM's ever indulged in the universally hated task of toilet cleaning. But urinals and toilets were plentiful. Schedules for the use of the three showers however were a weekly rotated arrangement.

Still, despite the rigorous scheduling of their lives, it was more privacy that they had seen in months and a welcome improvement over ward life. When Chocolate and Pretty were not on ward duty, they spent every spare minute at home with Lover, who made no little noise about how bored he was. At the end of their first week, he was stir-crazy.

"You can't be running around on that leg, especially in your condition." Pretty scolded. "You're at day five. Your other two pregnancies never made it passed day six."

Lover hated the coddling and flashed angry eyes at him and Chocolate both. "I'm going nuts here with nothing to do." He threw a hand at the door. "Laurent thinks my theory is sound but I'm better use as a mommy than a doctor?! He's an _idiot_."

Chocolate, still reeling that he was about to become a daddy, smiled a little lecherously in Lovers direction. "Well, _I_ like your use as a mommy."

Pretty tried not to smile behind the facilities weekly newsletter.

Lover glared at them. "At least get me a case to solve. Isn't _anyone_ here sick with something other than morning nausea?" He added to himself - _including me_.

Pretty checked the round, plain-faced wall clock. Decorative touches were in short supply. It was late. "I promise I'll bring you something interesting tomorrow. Aren't you tired?"

Lover had to concede he was and reluctantly nodded. He had some trouble standing up and it was nothing to do with the size of his lower abdomen, which was simply a little swollen and somewhat tender to the touch.

He knew the stat's. Even at eight full days of pregnancy most BMs only gained about two pounds and that centered bellow the navel. Lover was no exception but as each day progressed he discovered he was very sensitive to movement and his innards seem to react to gravity and shifts in his posture with increased soreness as the days, even the hours, advanced. Tonight he had dizziness added to the mix.

He looked up at Pretty who held out his hand to assist him to his feet and Lover took it reluctantly, feeling ridiculous at his next to helplessness. Leg and belly both he felt were turning him into not just a cripple but a pathetic cripple. "Yeah." He said, "I'm tired." After only twelve or thirteen hours of wakefulness, he was still shocked to usually find his eyes already closing and his body demanding sleep. Hardly keeping his lids open to walk the few feet to the bedroom, Lover allowed Pretty to steer him to the bed, undress him and then, shedding his own clothes, Pretty lay down with him.

Chocolate poked his head in. "I'm going to read a bit. 'Night." He switched off the light for them and closed the door.

Pretty took the opportunity for to draw Lover into his arms for a few minutes and kiss him deeply. It was too late now, however much he wanted to, to add his own seed to the dozens of tiny babies growing in Lover and make even more, but . . .his cock twitched and hardened at the idea, next time . . .

Lover kissed back and then, unable to stop the fuzzy blanket of sleep, closed his eyes. He was out in under a minute. Pretty went on kissing him a few seconds longer, then tangling himself up in Lovers long delicious legs and cupping his left palm over Lovers lower abdomen, slept just as deeply.

-

-

-

-

It was the wetness than woke him up. Chocolate had crawled into bed with his mates about an hour after they had gone to bed and fell quickly asleep. But something had disturbed him not long after. A change in Lovers body temperature, a thing he and Pretty had both become keenly attuned to, and an increase in his pregnant mates' respirations.

Chocolate sat up, his heart pounding. Some long untapped instinct told him things were not right. He felt the bed between himself and Lover. It was wet and not just wet, but sticky wet. He jumped from the bed, his own nakedness shivering in the coolness of the room and fumbled for the light switch.

The room was bathed in light and he turned to see what he already suspected. The sheets were stained red and Lover was soaked in sweat and breathing rapidly. Chocolate knew why. Lover was in labor. He could feel adrenaline pumping into his system. Lover was only just into day six. That meant only one thing - he was mis-carrying.

Chocolate threw the covers off, waking Pretty up with a jolt. "What th-?" He shielded his eyes from the sudden wash of overhead light.

"Get up." Chocolate said, his voice tight. "Lover's bleeding out."

Pretty didn't need any more encouragement and jumped up and with Chocolate made a quick examination of Lover.

Prettys heart sank. "Christ. He's miscarrying." It was the first time he had seen it in Lover. Others he had seen go through miscarriage bled and sweated, but those had been young men. Still in their prime, their bodies had sprung to action, expelled the dead or dying embryo sac, pinched off the bleeding birth canal and in general made a rapid, full recovery. Those strong, young men had not undergone most or any of the things Lover had already endured along his broken, serrated lifeline. Infarction and gun shots and heart-attacks and blood loss. Drugs for pain and for seizures. Sinking into comas and damn near dying several times over.

Chocolate could see Pretty almost freeze in his fear over Lovers' condition. He understood. He wanted to beat the walls himself but there was no room for their own indulgences.

Except for maybe verbalizing his own shock and sadness. "Son-of-a-bitch - _fuck_!" As much as he wanted those babies to live, he wanted Lover to live that much more. Chocolate dashed to the next room and called in a Code Red - a Miscarriage or a Delivery in Jeopardy (other than a death designated by a Code Blue), were the highest medical emergency priorities.

Chocolate ran back, knowing help was less than minute away. Pretty had rolled a pillowcase up and had Lovers legs bent and the bleached cotton pressed up against the birth canal that had rapidly and prematurely opened, sending a cascade of blood and tissue out over the sparkling sheets. Lover was unconscious, shivering and pale.

Chocolate noticed Pretty was almost dead white and silently urged the damn medicals to hurry up. "Jesus, he's losing a lot of blood." He suddenly felt responsible, cursing his own selfish desires where Lover was concerned. "Lover's too old for this shit." He said to Pretty staring at him across a mattress that was now ruined with human blood. With Lovers blood.

"What the fuck is Laurent thinking?" Chocolate asked himself and Pretty. "What the fuck was _I _thinking? He's fifty-one years _old_. He's too sick - too _weak_ - to be having babies." Chocolate looked at Lovers ribs, still showing somewhat despite two months or more of good nutrition. The problem wasn't the food, the problem was the expectations being put upon a man who had physically already been through too much.

Chocolate heard voices at the door. The room was not locked. No apartment dwellings were allowed to be locked. Privacy could almost always be assured most evenings and at night, but keeping the necessities of the various operations of the facility - why they were there to begin with - out was not.

Two orderlies pushed a Gurney in and Chocolate and Pretty, unconcerned with their own nudity, lifted him onto the raised bed on wheels and followed the two men down the hall to an emergency station. Every ten breeding groups quarters were situated less than a hundred, fifty feet from one.

Pretty rattled off his own knowledge of Lover and the circumstances to the attending on duty who turned, already prepared to received his patient when they burst through the swing doors. "I don't think he's been bleeding long but he's lost a pint at least."

Chocolate added, "He's fifty-one years old and five plus twelve. Ten pounds under-weight, on morphine for leg pain."

The young doctor, with the name tag that said _Whorley_, a lot of fair, kinked red hair and a quick, intelligent manner, nodded. He was already familiar with this particular patient. Whorley was in charge of thirty such older BM's, all under some risk for touchy pregnancies. "Five plus twelve?" He understood that meant this BM was on day five plus twelve hours of his pregnancy. Most gestations lasted eight or nine days. A few ran into ten days at the outside but many of those resulted in still birth sacs, their tiny life inside having been contaminated somehow, or injured, or diseased. Depending on the age of the BM, a bad enough cold could end a pregnancy in such a way.

"Blood type?"

"AB negative."

Whorley shook his head. "Shit." A rare type. He doubted there was any in the whole facility and even if there was, there was no time to go look for it. "Two units Ringer's." He ordered, his young chubby nurse carried out the order as fast as he could.

Chocolate and Pretty were ordered from the room and they returned to the apartment just long enough to quickly dress.

By the time they got back, Whorley had Lover already transferring to an isolation unit as a precaution against disease, either catching one, or spreading one that might be festering in him and, if so, possibly the cause of his miscarriage. All Pretty and Chocolate could do is return to their quarters and wait for Whorleys' good word.

XXX

Whorley himself was good enough to bring them an update.

Chocolate and Pretty had spent a sleepless night pacing and worrying a path in the carpet of their tiny quarters. A knock at the door woke them each from their individual dark world of worst case scenarios. At the gentle and surprisingly rare respectful gesture of knuckles asking permission, Pretty opened the door and ushered Doctor Whorley in.

Whorley sat in the offered chair, a padded but stiff plastic affair, one of the only three in the apartment. "Okay." He began, rubbing his nose between two fingers.

Starting with the basics, "Lover's stable." He announced and periodically checked the chart he brought along as he spoke. "But he lost a lot of blood and he's feverish. That could be due to the Ringer's, there is usually some small reaction to it for most people." Whorley tended to jump around in his delivery of diagnoses, whether good or bad. "I want to keep him in isolation for one week and in a private room for another ten days after that while we build up his body weight. He's too thin to be clutching sac."

Pretty recognized the euphemism as lingo belonging to the younger on-site medical personnel. _Clutching sac_ meant _a pregnant BM_. (It had risen from a mannerism unique to the pregnant BM's of holding a hand over their lower abdomens to minimize their sacs sensitivity to any movement such as walking or shifting too quickly in bed). And Whorley was as young as people in doctor form came. Younger than, Pretty recalled the youthful good looks of the gentle Australian accented physician, Chase. He felt a sudden overwhelming sadness at the world that had been and was now lost. And the good people who had gone with it.

The good, young medical man flipped through the chart to see if he missed anything. "Once he's in the private room, you are free to visit. Now, you're doctors and I know I don't have to tell you to not tire him. I think he'll be fine . . .in time. I've got him on broad spectrum antibiotics - just to be safe - in case of infection but the first thing is the weight. I want fifteen more pounds on his frame before any more pregnancies are attempted."

He looked at them each in turn. "I, um, I can only assume you care about his welfare. That this isn't . . . just an assignment to you."

Chocolate was slouched on one of the other chairs, rubbing his forehead with the fingers of his right hand. Pretty was leaning stiffly against the kitchen counter, arms crossed with worry. Both nodded.

"My long term recommendation is for him to never be impregnated again. Undoubtedly Laurent would have issues with that. As civilized as we like to make ourselves believe in this newly bleached, steel and glass world, pregnancy for BMs is compulsory. As much as I loath the concept, this cause is where humanity has brought itself and to that your BM is still a slave designate. One of thousands across this great land of the free and the brave." Whorleys sniffed with profound disapproval. "Therefore I doubt Lover just being allowed to live out his life would be adopted as an approved regime of treatment."

Whorley stood and handed a sheet of paper to Pretty. "Here is a copy of his chart. Hide it well." He advised. "Med's and vitals such as weight, BP, blood gases, blood proteins - the whole beaker."

Pretty was unboundedly grateful. As assistant attending's they were not strictly allowed access to any of a BM's files unless they were specifically that BMs ward doctor. Ironically, Laurent was still Lovers regular ward doctor. He had not yet reassigned his case.

Whorley walked to the door. He turned and gave them an encouraging nod. "Look. He'll be okay. Once he's well enough to come home, wait as long as possible before, . . before attempting a pregnancy again. Maybe you can think up an excuse to Laurent. Stall - lie if you have to. Lover's strong. He's a fighter for sure. But the longer his body has to properly heal and put on calories, the better."

They thanked him and Whorley let himself out.

XXX

"He suffered his third miscarriage despite your new theoretical conditions." Laurent was sounding less than convinced the new arrangement he had implemented for twenty breeding groups was worth the risk, particularly as what he saw as a glaring set-back. "Over half of the other BMs miscarried. That's a higher percentage than when they were in the general ward."

"But with numbers so much lower, the results are bound to be off at first, and we've only begun. Four weeks. We're four weeks into the new program. De-stressing an environment is only the first step. And Lover was pregnant before we even moved to the group quarters. Pregnant by rape for the most part. You think the effects of that are going to just fade over night? It's going to take him a little time to trust that he won't be put through that again." Chocolate had come to bargain for more time. Laurent had called him to his office to discuss the dismal first results and whether or not the program should be abandoned.

"I know this." Laurent said a little testily. "I'm not a first year med'." He sat back in his wooden swivel chair. He had received no approval as yet from the Council of Physicians as to his experimental breeding program which he could only hope he would in time receive since he had already begun said experiment without their go-ahead. "I'm taking a huge risk here."

Chocolate crossed his arms. "Look. I understand the risk. This place, this whole facility and others like it, may be our only hope and, yes, this new program might fail." Chocolate hoped his very sound position of reasonableness would convince Laurent to let them try again. "But trying it this way with the twenty groups, if we're successful? It could increase the final number of viable female offspring by ten-fold. You could produce a thousand breeding females. If the worst occurs and the program fails, you've lost at most six months. A few end numbers will be a little skewed. Not enough to significantly alter your projected outcome." Chocolate was no accountant but he figured his calculations were close.

Laurent didn't argue them. "I'll let it go ahead. But I have to assign a third breeder to your group."

Chocolate swallowed hard a few times, trying to dislodge his heart from his throat.

"We'll find a nice, vigorous youth for him, someone who'll fit right in physically. Don't worry." He said when he saw Chocolate's darkly disagreeable look. "He'll be in perfect health, and we'll do a psych' profile on him - make sure he's stable in every way." Laurent went back to his ever pressing paperwork. "He'll be there in maybe a couple of days. Just let him get to know your BM. I'm sure they'll get on fine and when Lover's ripe, breed him - all three of you. I'll continue pushing for this program with the Council. I just hope I'm not wasting my time."

Chocolate understood Laurents position. Everything, in the end, would be placed on his shoulders. The eyes of the Council, the president and the country were on him and men like him. His burden would be almost unbearable.

And then there were the BMs. Lover and hundreds of others onto whose shoulders Laurent shifted that burden. Produce. Always the last word was _produce._

All except for the news they were having a third breeder assigned to their little family, which news he had no idea how to break to a just recovered Lover or a fiercely jealous and protective Pretty, Chocolate gave Pretty the run-down on their way to the Recovery Unit from where Lover was now ready to be brought home.

He looked surprisingly good and when he saw them Lover hopped down from the bed. Even leaning on his cane, he looked good. Blood flushed and strong. Cotton was the fabric of choice where bleached clothing was standard and Lover was dressed in laundered blue jeans and a nondescript untucked cotton shirt almost the same color as his eyes. Chocolate lost himself looking at him. Years of pain dropped from sight. Lover looked like the old days, tall and lean but not thin. Now he was once more a fine, muscled, healthy lean. Sexy.

Chocolate took his elbow and lead him to the hall where Pretty waited with a wheel chair. Another standard when someone had just been released from Recovery. Pretty helped him settle in the chair and leaned down, kissing him on the mouth. "Come on, baby. Let's go home."

XXX

Part X ASAP.


	10. Chapter 10

Gone With the World

--

Part X

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains implied RAPE SCENES and commentary. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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"This has to be a fucking joke." Chocolate stared at the third and newest member Laurent had assigned to their tiny family of three.

The young dark eyed man stared back at Chocolate from the doorway of his new living quarters. Whether he got the joke or not was unclear. But at seeing who his new room mates were, his smugness turned into scared.

Chocolate exchanged looks with Pretty that left no room for doubt as to their mutual opinion of their house guest. Neither had to guess the others mind because both agreed in full. Chocolate made the first move and walked over to the young man in an obvious move to block his entry and said, "Don't even think about taking another step."

Chocolate pushed passed the nervous fellow, none too gently, and went to find Laurent.

When he did, "_Baby!?" _He barked at Laurent. "You expect us to accept _him_?" Chocolate could barely contain his outrage and knew his voice was rising with each passing moment.

Laurent did not fail to note it. "What's the problem? He's young, healthy, maybe a little passed virginal but-"

"-He's the one who betrayed us."

Laurent sighed. "Did you think you were going to get everything exactly as you liked it? He's the perfect choice. He lived with you for God's sake."

"But he never slept with Lover. He hated Lover. Lovers body never adapted to Babys DNA."

"Assuming the theory is true, for which by the way we yet have no reasonable science to support, according to army records, Baby was with the BM long enough for his body to respond to his. Sweat, skin, body fluids, blood - DNA is only the final stage."

"They hate each other."

"Well now they can learn to get along."

"Choose someone else. _Any_one else."

"Lover is a fifty-plus BM. Believe it or not, not all of the young studs want to make it with a man nearly old enough to be their grand-daddy."

Chocolate shook his head. "Even if I could get used to the idea and I'm not saying I will, Pretty will never accept it. And Lover sure as hell won't."

"He's a BM. The choice isn't his."

"Are you trying to sabotage our new program before it gets off the ground? You're throwing a wrench in the works before the works are even working."

Laurent slammed his hand down on his shiny metal desk. "I'm doing everything I can to achieve a balance between what the Council has issued while still allowing you room to run your study." With difficulty, Laurent calmed himself. "Let me remind you, Chocolate, that your program is _my_ program. I'm the one who has to answer to the government and the Council of Physicians. Baby is the perfect choice. The only choice." Laurent bent his head over his endless paper-work. "He was the only one left, the youngest one left, not already assigned."

"Then let us out."

Laurent narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"Send us back. We'll risk the Rough. We'll risk outside. _Baby_ I won't risk - that selfish son-of-a-_prick_. I won't risk him with Lover."

"No one's going anywhere. What did you think - that studs are al-a carte'? The survival of humanity does not allow for personal taste or grudges. It's Baby or no-one."

"Then no-one."

"Let me re-phrase that. It's Baby." Laurent nodded to the security guard standing outside his office. He had such men distributed through-out the facility.

Chocolate knew the discussion was at an end.

When he returned to their quarters, the reception from Pretty was almost as cold. "He," He pointed at Baby, "said you knew all about this." Prettys' fair skin was flushed red. "That you already _knew_ Laurent was assigning another donor to Lover."

Lover sat on one of the plastic chairs quietly observing the whole thing. Baby's betrayal was news to him. He remembered how much Baby had resented his presence when they were still living Outside. The authorities had ran him to ground, but until now he had not known by what means they had found out about him. Still, he understood was it was to be unwelcome, and Baby experiencing same was rightly apropos. Though, in another way, Baby being back was a suck-hole kind of come-uppance for _him_.

Baby being kicked out the facility altogether would have been more to his taste.

Chocolate felt like crap. "Yes. " He had humility enough to look guilty. "I knew he was assigning another donor. I didn't think so soon and I sure as hell didn't think it'd be _him_." He bit his lip, pleading Pretty for pardon. "I . . .couldn't think of a good way to break it to you."

Baby had not moved from his spot by the door. It was clear he didn't really want to be there either, but he had hubris enough to accept the circumstances, calmly confident that he had Laurents backing.

Pretty crossed his arms, speaking words meant for all but he staring at Baby with shaded eyes. "He is not touching Lover. Ever."

Chocolate dropped his head, eyes on the floor and in Prettys corner absolutely.

There had to be a way around the problem. They might not be able to stop Baby from bunking with them, but as for going near Lover, that was simply out of the question. "Then we don't leave Lover alone with him." Chocolate said giving Baby cold, hard eyes. "You hear me, boy? You never touch him with one little betraying finger."

Chocolate looked to Pretty, searching for either agreement or argument. Pretty nodded so Chocolate continued to lay out the rules. "You bunk on the floor because you sure as hell are not sleeping with us. Don't talk to us, don't get in our way. Laurent wants you here - fine. But we can make it so you're not actually here at all."

Pretty walked to stand over Lover, an gesture of protection of which he was barely aware. All he knew was he needed to be close to him. "You got a complaint about that?" Pretty said to Baby who watched them both warily from his spot by the door. "Take it up with Laurent. I'm sure he can assign you elsewhere."

Baby saw he was out-numbered when it came to his thoroughly hated presence. Never-the-less, he dumped his small bag of clothes on the floor and sat down against the wall in the corner. To Chocolates deep irritation, he kept staring at Lover.

Chocolate stepped over to where their betrayer sat on his backside, legs casually stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. "You so much as breath in his direction in a way I don't like, you're a dead traitor."

Baby just stared up at him with that way Chocolate well remembered. His expression alert but with an underlying color of boredom. Baby didn't scare easily and he didn't hold with threats. All he said was, "Sure, boss."

XXX

Threats sounded good when uttered but following through on them was another thing. And keeping Lover in their sight twenty-four-seven was proving logistically impossible. Chocolate strode through the many corridors to his duty ward well aware that Pretty would have to leave for his shift several hours before Chocolate was done with his, leaving Lover alone, and vulnerable, with Baby.

Chocolate reminded himself to re-moniker Baby with something a little less affectionate - like Bastard or Scum.

Not that Lover was helpless. BM or not, he was still a grown man and carried remarkable physical strength for one so . . .damaged was the only word Chocolate could come up with. It wasn't flattering but essentially true. _And I ought to know_, Chocolate mused,_ I was present and accounted for when most of the pre-outbreak damage happened. _

The world had changed more than a smidgen since then. In some big, big ways, so had they all. Chocolate decided he would requisition a miserable looking knife for Lover to carry with him. Best case scenario, if Baby tried anything, Lover could use his generous doctor skills and operate on the bastard. Castration would be appropriate treatment and Chocolate amused himself with the fantasy of hearing Babys' voice rise as the surgery progressed.

-

-

-

-

Lover kept himself locked up in the bedroom while Chocolate and Pretty were away. He regretted not taking in anything to read the first time, before he'd latched the door but made sure to do so thereafter.

Not that Baby had made a move. He hadn't. He'd behaved himself well in fact and did so for many days.

Chocolate and Pretty kept Lover to themselves at night, locking Baby out in the sitting room to make himself comfortable on the floor. He didn't complain and they didn't care.

One week after Baby had intruded on their tightly knit family, by the throbbing tickle in his loins Chocolate knew Lover had come into estrus. He was ready to be bred again. Pretty felt it also, to the birthplace of his bone marrow, such was his bodies urge to make with the impregnating of his mate as soon as possible. Two short days after Lovers estrus began, every moment Pretty and Chocolate spent with him drove them half mad with desire.

That night, lying on either side of him, they took Lover into their arms and plunged into hours of love-making, penetrating him each in turn over and over, filling him with their cum until they thought he had to be impossibly full with them. Too full for any more. Still they fucked him again and again, luxuriously, thoroughly, their bodies insane for him. Their very proximity to him causing their flesh to scream out the physical need until they were both deaf with lust. They made love and pumped their beings into him until Lover himself lost the fight of sleep and all but dropped off in the middle of some very heavy petting.

Pretty, still inside him as Lovers' perfect eyes closed, softly groaned and emptied himself into his mates body, his marble hard cock reveling in the incredible warm tight feel of him. Prettys mind reeled and his body moaned at the certainty that finally Lover would be pregnant with his offspring. Lover would carry new life - _his_ babies, carried and birthed for _him_, and not Chocolates' only. Pretty was crazy - dizzy - knowing he was one half of the fathers behind Lovers' imminent pregnancy. This time, his body, his cum, his flesh, was impacting Lover in a way no other could. Because he was Pretty and Lover was Lover, no other two on earth could duplicate themselves together in Lovers sweet, welcoming belly.

The thought made Pretty twitch and cum all the more, his arms wrapped around Lover. He held Lover as closely as possible, right up against his own body until his cock fired the last of its fluid deeply into him, until Pretty knew to the smallest ponder in his mind that he had filled him all he could.

_Lover is pregnant . . ._ Pretty loved the sound of it and let the three words roll around in his head like a sorcerers chant while he kissed Lovers neck and wrung the last divine spasms from his penis before withdrawing from Lovers hot depths. _Lover is pregnant _. . .The words became the worlds finest drug. They represented the most perfect sexual physical state. The very vision of it the tastiest cock-high in all creation.

"I love fucking you so much, baby." He whispered through the after-buzz of sex, so softly in Lovers ear, something for him alone. As he had offered his cock, he offered words between and for themselves and no one else. Not even Chocolate.

Fucking Lover was the only reason he wanted to live and he never wanted to leave the bed.

Spent and sleepy himself, Pretty ran two fingers through Lovers short hair that still hinted of curl after so many years. "Fuck, I love him so goddamn much." He whispered to Chocolate above Lovers sleeping head who had his face turned into the pillow, his mind and body tucked into sleep, his bones slack from exhaustion. Pretty had one arm still wrapped tightly around him. The intensity of his feelings for Lover scared him a little.

"I know." Chocolate said. "You always did, though you might not have realized it." Chocolate cast his mind back to the many years at the hospital and Pretty-Wilsons' near obsession with protecting Lover, keeping Lover-House safe from harm. Even safe from himself. "Everybody knew it."

Pretty didn't remember things that way, but maybe he had been blind to it. Maybe he had Lover-House so much in his sight, he never noticed his own off-kilter behavior when he was around him. "I guess so." But he was not blind now and had other, more recent things with which to be concerned over Lover. "What are we going to do about Baby?"

Chocolate said. "Baby's going to get tired of the restrictions we're forcing him to live under. Eventually he'll just leave."

Pretty wasn't so convinced. "He gave Lover up in a heartbeat. He didn't even get a reward for it."

"I don't think he anticipated you. He had no idea what you two had been to each other pre-Outbreak."

"He knows now and still he sits in that corner and watches every move Lover makes."

"But so far he's behaving himself. Maybe he knows Laurent is going to fold sooner or later. He has to. He's not going to see any "contribution" from Baby to his great cause in _this_ group."

"I hope you're right."

XXX

The same day that Laurent confirmed that he was, once again, pregnant, Lover found he had to go to the bathroom and staying in the locked bedroom for another two hours, which was when Chocolate arrived home, was out of the question. If there was only one thing about pregnancy that women and men shared equally, it was trips to the bathroom in answer to a demanding and overly sensitive bladder.

Lover knew all he had to do is unlock the door and walk quickly to the hallway and down to the common facilities. It was public enough that Baby would have no opportunity to touch him, or mock him even, if that was his choice.

Lover, in a necessary gesture if he was to walk that quickly with minimum discomfort, pressed the flat of his left hand against his lower abdomen, turned the lock, caught up his cane, opened the door and limped quickly across the room to the apartment entrance. The door swung open easily. Thank god for small favors and Laurents petty rules about no locks on any BM breeding grounds.

Baby, sitting in one of the stuffed, plastic chairs reading an old magazine, hardly glanced at him, then went back to his material.

Lover breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the common toilets and pushed through the swinging doors. Doors which could not be locked from the inside. A precaution against accidents. BM's tended to get a bit clumsy when pregnant, Laurent often contended.

As dizzy as he felt, Lover was inclined to agree with him. This pregnancy felt different than the others. There was less pain and though still some discomfort, his belly didn't carry that feeling of breakableness like with his two previous pregnancies, like everything inside him had been made of glass. This pregnancy seemed more a part of him than the others. He felt secure in it, calm even. Almost happy.

Lover left his cane resting against the smooth tile near the door while he limped over to the urinals, fumbling at his jeans that were fitting slightly tighter with each passing day. At least he would never get big enough to need maternity clothes, the very thought of a large clumsy belly a horror too ridiculous to contemplate.

Lover leaned against the wall in front of the urinal and allowed his pee to cascade down to disappear through the many drain holes, delighting in the relief of pressure it brought. Yesterday Laurent said the pregnancy was not only confirmed but that he was already well along in his third day. If all went well, he had five more days of rushed trips to the toilet and Pretty cooing and fussing over him like a nursemaid on a sugar rush. But he really shouldn't complain. No one got spoilt like someone Pretty cared about. Lover had never admitted it to anyone and almost never to himself, but he knew he deeply loved Pretty. And he was near to same with Chocolate. Near enough that he felt very secure with either of them.

Lover finished, zipped up and turned to find himself face to face with Baby. It took him just two or three seconds to sum up his situation and it was not a good one. His cane was no longer leaning against the door, it was jammed through the open style metal handles, effectively locking the doors tight to any other visitors.

Baby was looking at him as though he had no true face. As though he were somehow less human than other humans. A body ready to be used standing there still and frightened, breathing hard, his heart pounding, his feet itching to run if only he could.

Baby reached out a hand to touch Lover and that's where Lover knew he was in a no-win situation. The trouble with being in any males presence too long, his own body became _acclimated_ to him, as it surely would to Baby if Baby continued touching him the way he was.

Baby confirmed his thoughts. "I watched Laurents DVDs too. Enough of my sweat gets into your system, the more your system wants it, the more it wants me, the more your _belly_ wants me, the more your belly cries for _my_ cock and _my_ cum and the hard feel of _me_." Baby leaned in and kissed Lover tenderly on the cheek, as though he were pecking the sweet cheek apples of an old fashioned new-born. "You can feel it, can't you, Lover? Huh? Can't you feel how much your body is already wanting my cock? You want me. Soon you'll want more of me -- _all_ of me."

Baby kissed Lover on the lips and ran his hands up and down his sides beneath his thin tee-shirt, raising goose bumps all along his rib cage.

Lover could feel the surface tickles of his weak willed body and his contrary, traitorous mind chanting _I want, I want . . .yes, yes . . ._

And Baby could see and feel the rapidly altering responses of his new and most reluctant mate, how his lids dropped closed with every new finger touch and his knees weakened under Babys steady pressing of his body up against Lovers, again and again, until he was gently bucking as though they were already copulating in standing position though Baby had not yet opened his fly.

Or even removed Lovers clothes and spread eagled him on the floor. Baby moaned into Lovers mouth with the thought of fucking him and violently shoving Lovers' state of pregnancy from _Adequate_ (which, he told himself, was all he liked to believe the other two were capable) to _Fucked to Bursting_. Baby knew exactly how much time it would take before Lover would not only succumb willingly to his every sexual demand, but would accommodate him while moaning and crying out for more of it. At that tasty juncture there would be no going back for either of them.

"You may be a plus-fifty," Baby purred. "but you're sexy. Very hot, actually." He whispered, "Warm, sweet meat." Baby stared into Lovers layered blue irises and almost came. "Those fucking gorgeous eyes make me so horny." He unzipped Lovers jeans and pulled his tee-shirt over his head, discarding it to the floor. "I'm going fuck you so bad. I'm going to fuck you until you're no one's belly but mine."

Baby threw him to the floor and fell on him hard, pulling and tearing at his jeans until Lover was naked. "Open wide."

XXX

Part XI ASAP 


	11. Chapter 11

Gone With the World

--

Part XI

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains implied RAPE SCENES and commentary. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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A violent pounding followed by the sharp crack of splintering wood were his only warnings before the toilet door was forced open and Baby felt himself being hauled roughly to his feet by strong, angry hands twisted into the back of his shirt collar.

Chocolate spun the slimmer man around and snarled in his face, "Looks like you have an appointment with Laurent." He pushed him through the door, bouncing Baby off the opposite wall. A few bruises could be explained easily enough. But Chocolate handed him off when a large security man appeared, took control of the attempted rapist and accompanied all of them to Laurents sleeping quarters.

Laurent answered the door in rumpled pajamas, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "What the hell?"

Nodding his head at his hated former mate, Chocolate hissed, "Was his assignment rape? Because we stopped him just before it was too late."

Laurent looked uncomfortable. "Certainly no such action was authorized."

He ushered the three men into his personal rooms with a tired crook of a finger, the guard shutting the door behind him and never taking his eyes off Baby.

Divested of his lab coat and his hair messy from sleep made Laurent appear more human and less a cool hearted wizard of an unforgiving kingdom.

Pretty was busy keeping himself between Lover and everyone else while Chocolate voiced his opinion of the assigned donor and the whole third crucial man concept in general. "At least give us a few options to choose from. If this program works, you'll have Lover to thank for it. You and everybody in here will _owe_ him. Shouldn't he be allowed to choose his third donor?"

Lover leaned heavily on Pretty to ease the weight off his right leg, his cane was still lying on the floor in pieces after Chocolate had broke through the doors to his rescue and great relief. Pretty slipped an arm around Lovers waist and held him steady.

Laurent looked over at Lover, his eyes not unkind but he still tended to look at BM's, chocolate noticed with the eye of an appraiser to a rare painting rather than a doctor to a patient.

Chocolate was fed up with it. "Do you ever look at your son that way?"

Laurent turned his face to Pretty, appropriately contrite. "I'll get a list of names - statistics, weight, height, color, hair, blemishes . . .you can decide on a replacement together." He rubbed the top of his head. "It'll be a short list." He warned them.

Chocolate and Pretty both nodded, not even needing to discuss it. "Thank you." Chocolate, said motioning to pretty that he and Lover accompany him out the door. He wanted to give Laurent the opportunity to make good on his claim.

Laurent waved a hand to the guard. "You know what to do with him." He said.

Baby seemed to know as well. "Hey," He started to sweat. "You're not really going to send me back to the Rough, are you?" He licked his lips. "You let other donors take what they want all the time."

"Other donors aren't as rare as that brilliant BM." Laurent finally decided to drop the anagram for the blue eyed human under his power. "I believe Doctor House - Lover's hypothesis is sound. If it is, it'll be adopted country wide. Maybe even world-wide. I'm going to recommend it be anyway, if or when the time comes."

Laurent evidently felt he had shared enough with the rapist donor Baby and waved the guard away again, ignoring all of the prisoners cries for reasonableness.

Laurent returned to bed. It was late. He was tired. This night he just didn't feel reasonable toward a trouble-maker.

XXX

Pretty examines Lovers' abdomen, gently palpating it to check for signs of trauma until Lover pushed away his intrusive fingers, exasperated. "I'm fine. What part of f, i, n, e isn't clear?"

"I just want to make sure you're okay all the way through." Pretty said. "Lie back."

Lover sighed heavily, turning beseeching eyes to Chocolate who stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching. "Don't look at me." Chocolate answered Lovers' silent plea. "Pretty's right."

Lover gave it up and lay back. Pretty lifted up his tee-shirt and unzipped his jeans, gently pushing the thick material down to just above his groin. The small of the abdomen was swollen but not inflamed. It was red, flushed with blood, but not overly hot. At least, Pretty thought as he ran delicate touches over its surface, not in the fevered sense.

But hot it was. Lover, lying there with his slightly swollen, pregnant underbelly was perhaps the sexiest sight he had ever laid eyes on. Pretty finished his examination and leaned in to steal a kiss form Lovers mouth. "You're fine." He said to him, then whispered, "And you look unbelievably sexy when you're pregnant."

Lover rolled his eyes and sat up on his elbows. "Oh my _god." _He, with a little help from Pretty, struggled to his feet. Pretty smiled at Lovers awkwardness. He was only a few days away from giving birth and though his lower tummy wouldn't swell that much more, it would get heavier and more tender as the days passed. Already he was walking with the tell-tale hand on his abdomen, an almost unconscious stance BM's often effected when their bellies started to get heavier and touchy to movement.

In Prettys' opinion, it was so touching as to be heart-breaking. Lover walked from the bedroom to the sitting area and made hunger complaints.

Pretty volunteered to fetch some food.

Chocolate remained behind to help Lover ease his sore body down into a chair. Lover rubbed at his thigh.

"Bad?" Chocolate asked.

"Always."

So much had changed. Some things had stayed the same. "I could get you something for it."

But Lover quickly shook his head. "It might hurt the babies."

Chocolate sucked in a breath. It was the first time Lover had referred to them as babies and not by the more clinical _blastocytes_ or _embryos_. Or, when he was mad at either Pretty or himself for some reason, "_Your devil spawns!" _

Chocolate waited to see if Lover had heard his own words. Evidently he had but he did not appear embarrassed. He only glared at Chocolate with unmistakable warning in his throaty baritone. "Yes, I think of them as _babies_. If you start knitting booties, I'll _murder_ you."

Chocolate stood over him and leaned down, his strong hands gripping either side of the chairs arm rests. "Do you know how badly I want to take you in that bedroom and fuck your goddamn brains out?"

Lover raised his eyebrows. Chocolate loved that expression on him. He looked surprised, uncertain - caught off guard. Less in charge of himself. Lover then blushed and the sight was such a rarity, it made Chocolates' dick leap like a rutting buck. Lover as vulnerable, bordering on shy, looked so sexy.

Shy or not, Lovers' stomach did the talking or, more specifically, his pregnant little belly. "I want some cocoa. And pickles with hot sauce would be great."

Abandoning his horny intent for the time being, Chocolate straightened up. "You know either of those are almost impossible to come by?"

"But you'll never know until you try."

Chocolate succumbed to the not unheard of phenomena of a preggie craving a weird food fix. "I'll see what I can do."

Once Chocolate had left, Lover returned to the bedroom, closed the connecting door and stood in front of the half length mirror. Now that he was finally alone (it was almost impossible to get rid of both his mates at the same time), he stripped off his tee-shirt, undid the zipper on his jeans and pushed them down just to where his slight feathering of hair began around his penis. He examined his exposed torso. All wishes to the contrary not-with-standing his chest, at fifty-one years of age, was softening, though at this angle it still looked okay. His long neck sloped dramatically to strong shoulders rolling easily into well developed upper arms. His clavicles were prominent and the hair on his chest and abdomen light and evenly distributed down to his groin.

Then Lover stared for a few minutes at the out-of-the-world sight of his lower abdomen swollen in pregnancy. He explored his feelings about it as he studied the smooth but very obvious bump below his navel. The skin was more taut than the surrounding flesh and red flushed which he had come to learn was healthy. Blood was plentiful and so, too, oxygen and nutrients. A pale under-belly was a sign of illness or womb death. Lover played over it with the fingers of his left hand while his right clutched a cane to keep him upright. The vision of himself was both a marvel and something bizarre. A crippled, pregnant male was a strange sight indeed.

Lover poked at the mound of his belly and tried to imagine the tiny lives nestled inside. The area was tender to the touch, so he stopped poking and rubbed his hands over it, his fingers returning to a gentle caress. How many, he wondered, were in there? How many little Chocolates and how many tiny Pretties? How many babies?

Their babies. Their own _children_. He felt his heart speed up both in terror and . . .a weird sort of shy pride. He felt joined with the tiny, tiny lives in his body. Babies. _His _babies. His eyes watered.

Just emotion, he told himself. No different than the chemical reactions which took over his body and brain when he and Chocolate or Pretty, or both, were having sex. Lover felt his body, each time, writhing like a creature possessed. Possessed by their sweat and smell, sex and semen. His blood and breath and organs responding to their response until he wanted them so badly, and they him, that he knew to his marrow he would do _anything_ for them, sexually or otherwise.

Anything at all - whatever they asked. They could fuck him for hours, days, weeks and he wouldn't have a single thought of complaint. He loved each tantalizing moment and every physical quiver. The weight from Chocolate's muscled body bearing down on him or the touch on his flesh from Prettys' possessive and loving hands drove him mindless. He went almost _mad_ with wanting them even more. He wanted to be everything to them. Give _everything_.

Then the ardor would spill out of them, the multiple orgasms would end and his will that had been sucked from him, would slowly return, like air being pumped back into a flattened beach ball. He'd become a normal person again instead of a slutty sex whore bent on getting screwed by anything hung with a penis. In such a state he would probably not say no to a chimpanzee holding a banana.

Lover laughed a little at his own exaggerations. Chocolate and Lover, for now, were the only men he wanted on or in him. But, holy god, did he _want_ them!

Sex with Chocolate and Pretty stuffed him full of powerful, influencing emotion. But, though he had never and would never say it, he _loved_ that he carried Pretty and Chocolates babies. It made him feel incredibly special and humble at the same time.

And sexy. He felt so unbelievably sexy. Now whenever the thought of either of them penetrating him, fucking him, shooting into him, filling him up, making more tiny little copies of themselves inside him, a sudden surge for hard-core sex would arrive, his libido sky-rocketing.

Lover realized, standing there looking at himself and the life inside given to him by Pretty and Chocolate, that he loved his mates more than anything. He felt, really, choked up about it.

But, even more, he loved their babies. His tiny children. He would _kill_ to protect them.

Lover heard the outer door open and knew by the foot-falls it was Pretty. He quickly zipped up his jeans, pulled down his shirt, limped out of the bedroom and without warning, grasped Prettys' hands, pulling him into the bedroom, trying to unbutton his surprised mates shirt as they went.

"Whoa." Pretty was jarred by the feverish look in Lovers eyes. "Are you okay?"

In answer Lover kissed his lips and blew into his mouth. "_Yes_." He answered breathlessly. "Please." He felt his desire already building out of control. "_Please . . . _get naked."

Pretty didn't resist any further and did as he was told.

XXX

Chocolate came home, discovered his mates in thrusting ardor and joined them.

Chocolate raised himself above Lover, withdrawing his shiny, hard cock almost all the way but then would drop fast, driving it into Lover who moaned with each hard pump. He wrapped his legs around Chocolates back, damp with sweat and begged for him with cries of delight and whimpers of pleasure, driving Chocolate half out of his mind with desire. "You think you're pregnant now?" He said in between gasps and violent shoves on his cock into Lovers tight, hot hole, "Just wait, baby, you're going to be twice as knocked up when I'm through with you. That sweet little belly of yours is going to be so fucking full of me, it'll be a record."

Though no such reality would come of his sex-induced rambling, (conceptions only occurred over a twelve hour period. Once pregnant, the door was shut until birth and healing. After Lover reached another estrus, usually five days later, the door opened for them again) Chocolate still felt good saying them. It made the whole event hotter and more urgent. His cock would harden even more, until he wondered if it would ever return to its resting state again.

It was fine by him if it didn't. Chocolate brought his head down to rest in the crook of Lovers warm shoulder, driving and driving into him, moaning and mumbling other loving threats as to future fucking and the slaking of his sex in his pregnant mate.

Pretty had already filled Lover twice before Chocolate arrived home and joined in, so he was busy fucking Chocolate as hard as Chocolate was fucking Lover. Until they all arrived at the pinnacle of orgasm and came almost in sync.

It had been a while since Chocolate had felt Prettys' cock in him and he had missed it. Pretty was a delicious fuck too when he was bottoming. Nothing, however, but _nothing _compared to giving it to Lover.

Chocolate came and pumped into Lover until he was empty. He plummeted from the chemical high and kissed Lovers' shoulder, completely satiated, then collapsed on Lovers delicious flesh, though mindful always of his tender belly and leg.

That Lover was so strong in mind but in a condition so delicate, to him, was endearing and precious. "I love you." Chocolate whispered to Lover. "You're mine forever."

XXX

"Here's the list." Laurent showed him his computer. A data base with names, photos and genetics had been scanned and five numbers were on it, with links to more details such as genetics, temperament and intelligence. He saw Chocolates' expression. "I told you it would be short. And you'll get the name of your choice only after I've informed him and have his consent to cooperate."

"I don't see why we still have to do this. Lover is already pregnant. He's into his sixth day plus eight." Chocolate none-the-less pursued the list of five numbers.

Laurent did not go into it all over again but simply said, "Because the greater genetic spread of the sperm, the likelier we will have healthier surviving embryos. You know this as well as I, Doctor Foreman."

Laurent hardly ever called any sire or BM by their original name or even their adopted one.

Chocolate choose to look through the Genetics of the potential sires first and read carefully through all their profiles as to age, physical characteristics, health, immunizations, illnesses contracted and cured of (if any) and eye color. Chocolate decided to let the information speak for the men rather than a photograph. Looks were hardly as important as a healthy sire.

But then, looks might be quite important to Lover. He spotted one of the men whose eyes were listed as hazel/green. "That's unusual. He's a sire?"

"Not yet he isn't. He just came in a few weeks ago. We had him in quarantine for a while for safety reasons. He's been cleared for sperm donation. And hazel-green genetically is closer to brown than blue. He's not a BM. But he is . . .unusual. So far he's the only one of that eye color at this facility."

Chocolate was not surprised by that. Hazel and it's kin, green, were the rarest iris colors on earth.

"He's thirty-one. Healthy. Smart." Laurent encouraged and Chocolate read a little more, then linked to his photo.

A young man looked back. Not a stranger. Someone he knew. A man he _had_ known quite well. And respected. "Holy lord."

"What's the problem?" Laurent asked. The man in the photo was a nice young thing. "He's a good looking, intelligent and eager prime sire."

"Nothing's . . . wrong. Not wrong." Chocolate stared at the hazel eyed man. This would either work or it wouldn't. And they would probably learn which in a heartbeat. "What his name?" He asked Laurent.

"Locks."

Chocolate was amused. It was cute. Fitting. The blonde tendrils were exactly as he remembered. The face. The face had aged, certainly, but the vibrant youth that was there from the beginning was still there. Would, he believed, always be there.

Robert Chase stared back from the blue glow of Laurents computer monitor. Chocolate forgot about the other potentials. What was that stuff all about Fate and Destiny he used to read with mockery in the Sunday paper under the Horoscope column?

"We'll take him."

XXX

First, in a state of shock, Chase stared rudely at the man he had known as Foreman. Then impulsively he closed the few feet of stunned space between them and hugged him hard. "I cahn't bal-eye-v it's _yew_!" Chase said. Chocolate felt a tickle inside at the long forgotten lilting cadence of the younger mans' Australian accent.

Chocolates' grin widened. "Not only me. Come on."

Wilson first shook Chases' hand and then hugged him briefly, so speechless at the sight of him, he couldn't think of a thing to say.

So Chase spoke first. "So, who's the BM? Good looking? I hope he's nice at least."

Chocolate was suddenly wearing a shit-eating grin.

Pretty cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Um . . ."

XXX

Part XII ASAP


	12. Chapter 12

Gone With the World

--

Part XIIf

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains sexual situations -- SLASH. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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"Am I going to have to get my big knife?" Chocolate said with a sigh.

Chase, or Locks as he had come to call himself, stared coldly across the room at House, or as Locks had learned was his name now, Lover. Locks reaction when he'd heard that moniker was a loud guffaw. "Hah!" he had said.

Lovers' response had been to glower at Chocolate and Pretty as though, for his third sperm donor, they had chosen a monkey. "I am not going to sleep with _Chase_."

"Locks." Chocolate reminded him for the third time.

"Whatever!"

"Why the hell not?" Pretty asked, shaking a puzzled head over Lovers' blatant refusal. "He's young, healthy and you know him. We all do."

"Then you sleep with him." Lover said.

"I don't get it." Chocolate asked. "I thought you'd be happy we found someone we all knew? Someone trustworthy."

"I'm _not_ going to sleep with Chase." And that was Lovers' last word on the matter before he entered the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

"_Locks_!" Chase yelled at the mute door.

Pretty offered an embarrassed shrug to Locks, a helpless gesture of upturned hands. "Hormones."

XXX

But Locks stayed with them and with Laurents approval, the facility warehouse people added to their double bed a second twin sized, which Pretty and Locks shoved together. There was plenty of room for four men.

"Maybe I'd better sleep out here?" Locks offered the next day.

Pretty stirred some weak coffee. "He'll get used to the idea."

"I don't want to be someone that a BM "gets used to", I want to be a someone where they'll welcome me. He's treating me like a leper."

"He's confused by all this." Pretty soothed. "Remember how things used to be for Blue Eyes. Now he feels like he's nothing more than a baby-maker. He can't even use his skills anymore. Not in any significant way." He sighed. Things will improve. "Lovers' been though . . a lot."

"Who hasn't?"

Locks was right, of course, Pretty thought. they had all been through terrible times. "Maybe you should try talking to him?"

"I don't recall that ever having much success in the past."

"Lover respects you."

"And he fired me, back when we were the people who . . .who we were then."

Pretty understood Locks' reluctance to speak too much of the old days. So much lost, so many changes, so much pain in between then and now. To Pretty those days were becoming in his mind more and more like a picture on a wall. Like those old paintings of farm houses with the water wheels, horse and buggy and gentle cattle grazing in the fields. A portrait of the way things used to be. Things no one spoke of anymore. "No one's that anymore. Not Lover either. He's had to adjust, rapidly, to a whole new life here. Us too."

And the irony struck Pretty for the first time. "Weirdly enough, everybody's still counting on him to come through no matter what pain he has to go through." _Or what it might cost him_. So, Pretty thought, things also stayed very much the same too.

Pretty handed Locks a second cup of the weakly brewed beverage. Coffee was a treat staff, and the group of twenty breeding families, received to the tune of two hundred grams once a month. They had to stretch it anyway they could.

Locks accepted the cup and sipped. It wasn't bad. Better than just boiled water. "I'll talk to him. Eventually."

Pretty and Chocolate's shifts were rotated so they were both on night shift. Locks was assigned the day shift at a ward nearby, so he could be at home when the other two weren't. Laurent wanted his pregnants watched over, and Lover was well into his seventh day.

"Looks like this one's going all the way." Chocolate said to Pretty by the kitchen sink that evening. Lover and Chase were already asleep and in moments himself and Pretty were off to their respective ward duties.

Pretty smiled and looked at Chocolate. All he had to do was turn his head and he was nose to nose with him, Chocolate was standing that close. He could not help but feel delighted - almost high - with the knowledge that Lover this time was going to go full term and give birth to tiny living people.

Actually he was a little dizzy with it.

Chocolate noticed, feeling a bit drunk-like himself, with the news. He impulsively hugged Pretty. "We're about to be parents." Chocolate said, feeling the fear and pride and joy and back to fear again. It was amazing.

Pretty nodded, unable to speak. "One more day." He wished he could stay home, but soothed himself in knowing they would both have the next day off to witness the birth. "Come on, dad, let's go to work."

XXX

Locks woke up to a low moaning. Sitting up in the dark, he heard it again. At first he thought Lover was having a bad dream or maybe a good one if it involved insulting remarks made to _him_.

The next sound from Lover was not of the dream variety. It was pain.

Locks scrambled up and switched on the light.

Lover was lying on the other side of the bed. He was not awake, at least not fully, but he was sweating profusely and lolling his head back and forth in a half waking effort to rid himself of the discomfort.

Locks swallowed. "I hope the hell that's your leg hurting and not . . ."

A harsher, opened mouth groan cut off any more monologues. Locks threw a robe on over his pajamas and pulled the covers off Lover.

He checked carefully between his legs. No blood but a cloudy fluid had stained the bed sheets. "Oh crap." Locks said quietly. He was a doctor and had delivered babies before, it had been part of his internship. He recognized the fluid as a type of amniotic fluid, but he had never delivered a womb sac from a man before. Even after watching all of Laurents' videos on the matter, it was still new and he was still untried in this particular aspect of BM mutation.

Locks pulled one of the sheets from his side of the bed and twisted it into a rope. Using it as a kind of gentle restraint, he tucked it under one side of Lover, passed it beneath his scrotum and tucked it under his other side, to gently lift Lovers gentiles up, keeping them out of the way.

Locks made a visual examination of Lovers perineum. There was no opening like in the birthing video. He could see only a small bruising, as though the birth duct had tried to push through but for some reason had stopped short.

Lover was awake now and another tremendous cramp overtook him. He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned loudly. In between cries of pain, he was panting, trying to dispel the worsening cramps. "You, have . .to cut." He said to Locks in between gasps.

"What?" Locks had no idea what was wrong with himself other than he was about to deliver Lovers pre-mature sac and the very idea terrified him.

"Cut . . .or I'll . . . huh-hem . . .orrage . . . int . . .ernally."

Locks ran to the kitchen and then remembered to dial a Code Red. He hoped it would not have to turn into a Code Blue. Then he found a sharp knife, poured a tiny bit of alcohol on it, wiped it clean with a fresh paper towel and returned to the bedroom where Lover was caught in a terrible spasm, his yells were becoming less controlled and more desperate. "Hurry . . .up!" With every spasm his back would arch in his bodies attempt to expel the mass it had decided had resided within him long enough.

Locks calculated that Lovers' labor pains were more than twelve hours early. He wondered if it was too early for the lives inside the womb sac to survive.

But helping Lover survive was the first priority. "Just hang on, I've got the knife." Locks held it just above the now swollen area of his perineum, the birth duct obviously trying to push through without success. Locks looked at Lovers' pale, drawn face. His patient grimaced in pain.

"This is going to hurt." He warned.

"Just do it!" Lover shouted this time but another spasm cut off any more words.

Locks steadied the knife, quickly and expertly slicing through the delicate skin and thin layer of fat. Like it was a living thing, the birth canal, somehow knowing it was free to advance once again, pushed through from beneath, slick with fresh blood, the thin albumen-based membrane at its tip splitting open.

Lover was in the throe's of true labor now and his cries came regularly as his body tried to push his under-developed sac out into the living, breathing world. Lover clutched at the bedcovers in his agony as another powerful spasm took him from mere moans to outright cries of pain. He yelled, not caring who heard or if it hurt his own ears. He had never before felt pain like it. Wave after wave of terrible cramps that increased in seconds flat to an agony. Spears of it lanced through his lower abdomen and across his bowels and over his back, assaulting his kidneys and spine again and again. Merciless and relentless pain, and he was convinced it would ever stop. He was doomed to writhe and cry out forever.

It wasn't fair! His fingers dug into Locks sweaty hand like claws. "Ow! Goddamn it!" Lover let go of Locks hand and shouted as another wave of pain bore down. No, this would never, ever end. As though to underline his thoughts, another wave of agony sliced through him like a red hot knife through butter. By comparison, his leg was a runner-up at best.

Locks took Lovers right hand in his own again and squeezed his fingers. "I know it hurts, but you're doing good." he said. Stupid words, but that's what doctors said when their patients were having babies. Because other than guiding the process and marking it on the clock, they usually did almost nothing to facilitate the coming out of a new life from its mothers - or _fathers'_ - body.

"It'll be over soon." Locks tried to assure Lover who was gasping like a fish out of water, trying to ride out the pain. But Lovers' hand never let go of his own.

Locks heard the outer door open and _thankgodthankgod!_

Pretty and Chocolate with a Gurney and two orderlies in tow accessed the situation. Locks brought them up to date on the less obvious. "I had to cut him. The birth canal wasn't pushing through. Now he's seems to be doing better."

More useless words. Locks decided it was time to surrender the floor to others and got himself out of the way.

Chocolate looked at Locks gratefully. "Glad you were here."

They lifted Lover onto the Gurney and whisked him away down the hall to Emergency OB.

Pretty, seeing Locks pale face and frightened eyes, stayed behind, sitting down beside the younger man who had slumped on the dry end of the stained bed. He couldn't help but smile a little at the others stunned countenance. "You okay?"

Locks wiped the sweat form his face. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess so." Then he felt stupid for feeling so faint. He wasn't the one who was giving birth. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Pretty draped an arm over Locks shoulders. "That your first delivery?"

"First delivery from a pregnant _man." _

Prettys' smile grew wider. He remembered his first time seeing a BM birth. He would only describe it as surreal. "Physically it's different of course, but other than that, how was it?"

Locks considered. He was stunned, of course, by the suddenness, and weirdness, of it. Hesitant a little because it was Lover - and worried because Lover was early. He also felt a weird kind of satisfaction that he was able to participate in it and that Lover allowed him to without question. Lover had, in fact, accepted his assistance without a single complaint or insult.

"It was. . . ." A old Lover-ism popped into his head. "It was cool." He looked over at Pretty. "Think he'll be all right?"

Pretty nodded. "Yes. You were here. He might have died if you hadn't been." Pretty pulled Locks in close and kissed his head. Then, taking a finger, he turned his face so they were eye to eye, and planted a very tender kiss on his lips.

Locks kissed back. The kiss went deeper and became passionate. But there were other things to attend to and Pretty finally ended the kiss, pulling away. He was almost disappointed that he couldn't right then show Locks his gratitude in a more thorough way.

Pretty stood to go join Chocolate in OB. Lover was birthing new little lives that he was going to give to the world. Pretty wanted to be there. "Come on. You should be part of all of this."

Apparently Locks agreed because he followed.

XXX

"Bear down." Chocolate said encouragingly into Lovers ear, who was yelling from the pain and trying to oblige by pushing for all he was worth. But he frowned at Chocolate. Lover gasped, biting his lip. _He _wanted it over with more than anyone.

Locks stood to one side, next to Pretty, both dressed in paper gowns and masks watching the whole thing. With a sort of thrill ride fascination, Locks could not take his eyes off the scene before him. A _man_ giving birth.

Lover tried to do as he was told and pushed with everything he had but, after five and half hours of labor, he was tiring. Chocolate tried to whisper encouraging things into Lovers ear. Lover was pouring sweat, some dribbling into his eyes, the salty water stinging him and making him blink.

Locks took up a sterile towel, ran cool water over it and applied it to his forehead. Lover gave him a brief look of gratitude. He was too near total exhaustion for words.

Locks recalled Laurents lecture and slide/video presentation on his third day at the facility.

Male pregnancies did not end with strictly a _pushing_. More of a tightening of the abdominal muscles, similar as would happen while doing sit-ups - only ten times the intensity. The BM would begin to contract his muscles in a unique "wave" from the upper abdominals to the lower, causing a movement of horizontal undulations along the internal abdominal wall. Laurent had applied some very fancy Latin words like _Internal rectus flexion _to describe the unique movement, but to most of the OBs it was simply _Caterpilling_.

The BM would perform the non-sitting up "sit-ups" in repeated waves of muscles toward the groin which the reptilian brain would quickly take over, growing in intensity and frequency until the BM no longer had any control over it (once this stage was reached, there was no going back on the birth. At this juncture, if something went wrong during delivery, a cesarean section was impossible and the BM would begin to hemorrhage into his abdominal cavity. Such an event would be an almost certain death sentence).

The undulations eventually caused a separation of the womb sac from the trophonemata or, as Laurent termed it, "proto-placenta", a simplified placenta that the mutated DNA in all BM's determined was sufficient now that full term babies were no longer required by nature.

Once the separation was complete, the muscles would very, very slowly, push the sac into the newly formed birth duct. Millimeter by millimeter the sac would be stretched and molded into a long tube-like mass and squeezed through the narrow but accommodating duct to the end of the canal and out into the cold, harsh world where humans took over, ferrying the living mass quickly to an incubation bath.

Locks still had a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea of a pregnant Hous-_Lover_. _He was Lover now. I'm Locks. Foreman's Chocolate, Wilson's Pretty and this is the weirdest, most unbelievable and amazing kind of insane I've ever been involved with._

But involved he now was and he knew it. It didn't bother him that there was no going back.

Lover gave a final "push" and the encased gelatinous mass of fluid and embryos, slick with his blood, "splooch"ed out onto a waiting sterile "net" of organic silk. In a lightening motion born of practice, Whorley whisked it over to his smaller examination table where he took a moment to weigh and measure it.

The attending would then hand it over to be taken to the Incubation Ward. There it would be kept in the near dark where it was warm and quiet and no one, but no one, other than the assigned physicians, would be allowed to enter for any reason. Those doctors duty was to make sure those new lives were fed and cared for around the clock until they became babies. Then they would be sent off to grow into children and finally, with luck, grown-ups.

Locks had watched it all live. Lover screamed as his birth canal retracted, a parting gift of pain for his trouble. His chest heaved a few more times before the pain subsided and then left him altogether. Chocolate stood on one side of him and Pretty on the other, both turned to jelly at the sight of their Lover after birthing their children. They touched his hair and kissed his forehead and said sweet things in his ears. Locks had no idea what to think. Only it seemed bizarre in the extreme and also unexpectedly endearing.

After his quick examination of Lovers' sac, Whorley said to Chocolate. "It's a bit small. He's a half day early. But it looks healthy." Pretty walked over to examine his first children with Whorley and they spent a few moments murmuring together.

Lover was all but unconscious with exhaustion. Chocolate waved Locks over to assist with Lover, who needed attention. Chocolate could see Locks face drained white even through the mask. "You freaked out?" He asked him.

Locks shook his head. "No. But that was, it was, . . .bloody _incredible."_

"Here." Chocolate handed him a cloth soaked in antiseptic cream and a dry towel. "Help me clean him up. He's going to need to sleep for a day and need another day at least to recover before he can be allowed up and around."

Locks, still reeling from the event and so a bit slow in responding to Chocolates' instructions, nodded like a robot low on batteries and slowly started wiping the fluid and blood from Lovers buttocks and the backs of his thighs.

This man had just given birth. Lover, lying here in front of him on the table, faint, almost comatose, from his ordeal, had squeezed out possibly dozens of children from his body right before the naked eyes of three witnesses. Locks kept seeing it in his mind over and over. An impossible, wonderful, even miraculous creation.

Chocolate helped him lift Lovers knees to better access the area of his perineum. Locks was astounded to discover that, after just the few minutes that had elapsed since the delivery, the birth duct opening was already thickly crusted over and on its way to healing shut. That seemed impossible too.

"This is astounding." Locks said.

But he also knew, that somehow, someway, he wanted in. Somewhere in this group of men whom he had known in another life, virtually another world, he wanted to know again. He wanted the closeness with friends and family again. He wanted love. He wanted children.

In every way, he wanted in. He wanted to have his place in society again and leave his good mark on the shit-spreading world. He expected once more and would accept nothing less than basic human life. He deserved it. They all did. After so much had been lost and so much sacrificed to gain back so little, they were owed that much.

Locks wanted the love, pain and disappointment of being human. He craved forgiveness and joy, lovemaking and arguments, soft, sweet sex and hard, heavy fucking. He was determined to again travel the entire human trip. The whole damn distance.

All the way.

XXX

Part XIII ASAP


	13. Chapter 13

Gone With the World

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Part XIII

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains sexual situations -- SLASH. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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In less than twelve hours, Lover was on his feet.

"I want to see the babies." was the first thing he said when he entered the living area. Sitting at their tiny round eating table, Locks looked up from his book, an 1979 Edition of Home Remedies, while Pretty was busy patching a hole in the crotch of his jeans. He was in the smaller of the three easy chairs, directly beneath the brightness of their sole lamps' bulb.

The three men looked at each other then back at Lover. "Mmh - that'll probably be tough, babe'." Chocolate said, Lovers' announcement waking up him up from a nap in the only easy chair big enough to accommodate him. He yawned and stretched. "Laurent has the Incubation Ward off limits to everyone but the assigned physicians and staff."

Lover gave him an unmistakable look of not caring. "Off limits to the _parents_? To the _birth _father?" He shook his head at an idea he clearly thought was ludicrous. "I don't think so." Lover snatched up his cane that he habitually hooked over the ledge of the bedroom door and headed for the hallway.

Chocolate sat up straighter with an exasperated glance to Pretty who intercepted Lover before he could exit.

Locks closed his book to watch more closely the whole exchange from his straight chair by the table.

Lover dismissed Pretty with a head shake. "Get out of my way."

Pretty used his soothing voice. "Lover. No one gets to see the embryos. It isn't part of the program. Come on, just sit down and we'll talk ab-"

Lover shrugged off his hand. "Stop with the sweet muffin bullshit." He stared at each of them in turn like they were strangers. "Not part of the _program_? Really?" He grabbed the door knob, waving his cane back and forth between Chocolate and Pretty. "Which one of you doesn't want to see his kids? Think Poppa Smurf-Laurents' - cut us a fair deal?" Lover opened the door and walked as fast as he was able. His nether-region was still sore but the birth duct was healed over and his leg, for a change, wasn't too bad. It was a good, ripe time to do some walking.

Pretty followed him, saying back over his shoulder at Chocolate and Locks. "Give me a minute. I'll deal with him."

After the door had swung shut, "He hopes." Lock remarked to Chocolate.

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"Lover." Pretty caught up with him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Lover shrugged it off a second time. "Wait a second. What do you think? That you can just waltz onto the Inc' Ward and find your babies among the hundreds of incubation wells?"

"_My_ babies? I was under the impression they were yours too? Your penis was in the room at the time."

"Of course I think of them as mine. And they're Chocolates too. But we're . . .we can't be . . .did you think we would be _parents_ to them."

"I'm not talking about bringing them home for a birthday party or sending them for piano lessons. I'm talking see them. I want to _see _them. At their birth I was otherwise occupied with agony- none of you are ever coming near me _again_ by the way! This baby thing's a sweet deal for you jerks - you don't have to do anything! Just stand around rooting for me like a group of cheerleaders, and then even _you guys_ got to see them."

"Okay." Pretty restrained Lover with a gentle hand on his elbow. "Okay. Okay. We'll go speak to Laurent. We'll talk to him, see what he says."

Lover started walking again. "Fine. But there is no second option. They're my kids. It's my right."

Pretty understood Lovers feelings on the matter. He and Chocolate had been having a similar discussion between themselves while Lover was resting and healing up. But Chocolate and Pretty understood that rights didn't come into it. Allowances even hardly came into it in relation to donors. Laurent allowed the new program because it might produce greater numbers of offspring. But he and Chocolate didn't misunderstand why Laurent used the term _donors_.

Regarding their offspring, _parents_ , were any proper still around, might very well still have a few un-written rights in the new world. All _donors_ had were requisition forms. And when it came to BM's and their rights, it was much simpler. They didn't have either.

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-

"Lover doesn't want me here." Locks announced.

Chocolate sipped some cold water, trying to wake up. He wondered how Pretty was handling Lover. A BMs' post partum emotions were notorious. "Yeah. I know."

"I should just go."

"Look, give him time. And Lover's not the only occupant of this luxury two room condo. Pretty and I want you here."

"Why does he hate me? I mean, back then, back in the old days, he didn't hate me. He didn't much like me, or anyone but-"

"-He didn't hate you."

"He fire-"

"-Not because he hated you. He fired you to punish me."

"Well, if he wanted to punish you, why fire _me_?"

"Because he couldn't punish me, I was already quitting. Ergo he couldn't can my ass. When it came to me, he had no cards left but he knew it would bother _me_ if he fired _you_."

"Did it bother you?"

Chocolate rubbed his chin. "Nah." He wanted the old days to be left just that and erased the short reminisce from his mind.

Locks heard the humor in his flip answer. "So is House - Lover I mean - still as nuts now as he was then? And who decided on that name? Hardly an accurate description of a cranky old guy with a limp. I'm betting his choose it himself."

"Lover is . . ." Chocolate had to think a second or two, "House plus hormones equals nuts. Pretty picked the name."

"Figures." Locks played with his sleeve. "This sucks."

Chocolate was finding himself growing attached all over again to his former colleague. Chase had been even younger than Locks was. Locks was older and not just in the physical sense. No one had aged by mere time gone by. Pain had seasoned them. In some ways, they were all old men now.

"Lovers' reaction is pure gut." Chocolate explained. "He was pregnant. He wasn't allowed choices, they were presented to him. Now he wants to see his babies and Laurent's not going to let him. Lover's venting."

"Other than post partum mania, what's he like now to live with? I've only been here a few days. Think we could stand each other if I did stay?"

Chocolate was surprised by that. Locks was willing to try at least. "Hey, if _I_ can get along with Lover, you can. Besides, he's mellowed out a bit. You'd think pregnancy would make the man an even bigger pain in the ass and . . ." Chocolate paused. "Scratch that. A pregnant House _is_ a bigger pain in the ass. But it's also changed him too."

"Like how?"

"Like he's a marshmallow in the bedroom for one thing." Chocolate felt a stirring in his loins and sighed. It would be several days at least before Lover was ready for pregnancy again. "And he's given up practicing medicine, was _made_ to give it up and who knows for how long? But he, as you know, isn't stupid. He's aware of the urgency of the world situation."

"Lover is House. He'll want things his way or no way." Locks decided to relent a bit and give the man some benefit of doubt. "Look, I want kids too. I want something from me out there in the next generation and the one after that. But I don't want them with someone who doesn't want them _with_ me."

Chocolate understood that. What Locks needed was a day or so alone with Lover. Maybe with some time alone things might turn as nature now intended. If so, great. If not, then they were no worse off. "Let me figure something out."

XXX

At the Incubation Ward, Pretty and Lover were turned back.

"No access to I.W. unless properly authorized." The expressionless guard said. "And for that you've got to talk to Laurent. His electronic signature's the only way you're getting in there." Was his last word on the matter.

Lover cajoled, bribed and insulted the man who was easily twice his size and carrying an big, black automatic weapon. Lover was ignored.

The next few minutes saw Pretty arriving in Laurents' office followed by Lover. Pretty with an apology on his face. Lover with the scowl of a dad deprived of his spawn.

Both Laurent and Pretty knew it was volatile mix for such an enclosed space.

Without a hello, Lover spoke first. "I want to see my babies."

Laurent was in the middle of a delicate call to the Physicians Council. "I'm sorry, sir. Excuse me a moment." He said into the phone, placed his hand over the mouth piece and then to his visitors. "I beg your pardon?"

Lover stepped closer. "My birth sac. I want to see the embryos."

Laurent raised his eyebrows in a facial shrug. "No one is allowed in I.W. The embryos are being monitored, fed, cared for, we cannot have just anyone-"

"-I'm _not_ just anyone. I gave birth to them. They're my babies."

Laurent apologized to the person at the other end of his connection, promising to call back. He hung up. "Strictly speaking, they're not babies at all. Not yet. Not for several months."

"I'm not expecting to bring them home. But I'm the birth parent and a doctor. I know what to look for, I can check their health, smell for infection-"

Laurent raised his eyebrows doubtfully at that last claim. "Look," he patiently explained, "it would be exceedingly difficult for us to locate your particular sac. We have hundreds right now in varying stages of incubation and growth. You were just one of fourteen BM's who gave birth yesterday."

"But they're not _all_ me. I do know my own name. I can locate them the old fashioned way. Don't you people make lists? Keep records?"

"Of course." Laurent cleared his throat. "But not of names. No birth fathers' names are ever recorded as belonging to _any_ specific sac, unless we have cause to suspect a contagion or serious deformity - which is almost impossible to tell at this early stage. We record day of birth only, then weight, length and so-on."

"Are we packing dry-wall here? We're making _babies!_ And you're telling me you don't mark even the _time_ they were born? And why the hell _not_ names?"

Laurent sighed heavily. It was an old argument. "For the very reason that brought you to my office. The birth parent inevitably wants access to his embryos. Can you imagine the logistics of allowing daily or - my god - _hourly_ visits by hundreds of birth dads' to hundreds of sacs? And all those daddies wanting the best for their offspring? All desiring to watch them grow and become babies and children? We keep names out of it to keep it less complicated. Less of a strain on resources. Less emotion. Even I don't know who's sacs were who's."

Lover had turned pale. Pretty thought he might tip over and quickly steadied him with a hand on his free arm. "All I want is to see are the vitals." Lover replied, more reasonably. "To be sure they're okay."

"Rest assured they are."

"How do you know if _you_ don't know who's' is who's'?"

"Because all of them are monitored every minute of every day."

Lover stared at him. "Are you telling me you're not going to allow me to even see my babies? Just _see_ them? Ever?"

Laurent looked uncomfortable. "I have never seen my _own_ grandchildren. Doing things this way is best for the program and for humanity."

Lover raised his cane a few inches like he wanted to throw it at the man. "Says you."

Pretty followed Lover as he stomped from Laurents' office.

Lover came to halt after only a few steps. Pretty took the opportunity to take his face between his hands. Lovers' cheeks were hot, his face red flushed and was on the verge of an emotional explosion. So Pretty held him very gently, very still, staring into Lovers disturbed blue irises, trying to defuse the internal bomb.

Lover just stared back at him, breathing hard. Pretty could feel his racing pulse through the vessels behind his jawbone.

"I _need_ to see them." Lover said. "I . . .I don't know _why_."

Pretty nodded. "I know."

"No one told me this was part of the deal. Raised by others, fine. But to be prevented? _Banned?_ I won't put up with that."

"Lover." Pretty looked at him, holding his mate's faltering gaze. "We don't have any choice. There are no ideals anymore. No little league. No pretty ribbons. No picnics, Christmas pictures or family reunions."

"I just want to _see_ them." Lover responded by yanking Prettys' hands away from his face. "Just looking is too much to ask? I've given up everything I was for this. . . program." He all but spit the word out.

"There's nothing you can do."

From the foundation of time, Pretty knew those were the wrong words to say to Lover.

"Oh?" Lover asked. "There is one thing I can do."

"I'm afraid to ask."

"I can _not _put out." Lover looked back at Laurents office. "I can keep my pants on."

Pretty rubbed his forehead, sensing rough waters ahead. "And they could put you right back into the regular Cop' Ward, strap you down and send in whom ever they want to breed you to anyway."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

Pretty played the last card he had. "Or they could shut down your new program and we could _all_ be re-assigned. We could be split up."

That at least caused enough pause in Lover. He took a minute to think, then seemed to lose all energy and sagged against the wall. "If I can't see my kids, if they're never going to let me even see them a few times, then I don't want to make any more."

"Things will change." Pretty said, hoping to heaven it was true. "Eventually."

Lover looked away to said future like it was standing before him in the hallway ready to shake hands and Pretty saw the change in Lovers' eyes. Not capitulation, that was ridiculous. But something . . .

"Are you planning something?" Pretty asked.

"Nope."

"Yes you are. I can see it like a big-ass-wrench in the works. You've got some harebrained scheme to get yourself into Inc' Ward. Whatever it is, it won't work."

Lover drew his mouth into a fake, thin smile. "No." He shook his head vigorously, heavily underlining the _No_. "You've just helped me to be more . . .circumspect."

Pretty narrowed his eyes. Lover was too calm. "No I haven't." He denied.

"Sure you have." Lover limped calmly back in the direction of their living quarters. "I'm as circumspect as a pig in poop."

XXX

Chocolate and Pretty cleared out for two days, requesting beds in the general ward so Locks had a chance to spend time alone with Lover to see if the two could hit it off. Laurent agreed with a warning. "They'd better. Lock's an almost perfect match. If your BM doesn't cooperate, I'll send him back to general ward."

For an hour they sat staring at one another. Locks finally broke the silence with, "Why do you hate me?"

Lover looked up from his deep blue funk. He lay back in a chair, staring at two cups of cold coffee on the one small table. Pretty had brewed it for them before he and Chocolate vacated to the General Ward.

The coffee had gone untouched. "I don't hate you."

"Then why won't you sleep with me?"

"Bald as that huh? You're too young." House said.

Locks sat slumped on one of the plastic stuffed chairs, one leg dangling over the arm-rest, the other stretched out before him. He was sipping water from a plastic bottle. "Figured I'd save time by getting to the point. Chocolate's young too."

"Only on the surface. It's a disguise. You're young all the way through."

"What?"

"Chocolate was a grown up at six years old. Your personality still has training wheels."

"It does _not_." Locks hadn't mean to sound so whiny. "I mean, I'm more mature than you. I don't run from rooms and slam doors like a spoilt delinquent."

"I'm usually pregnant. Exceptions must be made. And I'm still a cripple, too. _Double_ exceptions."

Locks stopped talking.

Lover realized that Locks was staring at his mid-section. "Stop looking at me like you're expecting a two-headed snake-demon's to burst out of my chest. I'm not pregnant right now."

"Sorry. I'm just not used to pregnant _men_. And you can't blame me for looking where I've never had any reason to look before."

"Then look without being so obvious that you're looking. It's just a stomach, not a pouch. I'm not a kangaroo."

"How can I look without looking?"

"I don't know. Glance with _style_. Look but do it casually. James Bondish kind of looking."

"Oh, yeah, _you've_ changed."

"Bite me."

"Right. _I'm_ the immature one."

During delivery Locks had gotten Lovers' blood and body fluid on himself and Lover knew it was just a matter of time before Locks' penis woke up to it and started demanding some action. Lover wanted to delay that as much as possible so he stayed on his side of the room as far away from Locks as he could but since it was a small room, that proved to be no more than twelve feet away. "Where were you before you came here?" Lover asked.

Locks looked at the wall instead of his companion. "As soon as Outbreak was confirmed, I took the next flight home. To Australia."

Lover frowned. "And you came _back_? Are you an idiot?"

"It was fine for a while. It's an island nation. But there was still no way to completely control population movement or private aircraft flying in and out. Eventually the virus got there too and killed all the women and more than half the men. Now things there are actually worse than they are here. No breeding facilities for one thing. Just . . .chaos."

"Oh." Lover was curious. "What happened to Cameron?"

"What do you _think_ happened?"

"You two were an item?"

Locks said, his voice very carefully controlled. "Not anymore. Now," Locks tried to use his friends adopted names since they had made the effort to use his. "now Chocolate and Pretty want me to be your item number three."

"It'll happen you know. If you stick around long enough."

"What'll happen?"

"You delivered the babies. Some of my blood got on you - got absorbed into your skin and your body. Now it's in you and that combined with the years we worked together means your penis now has a thing for me."

Locks understood of course but could not help feeling rejected at Lovers rejection, and responded accordingly. "Wow. No ego there."

"Chemical romance." Lover explained with a good helping of mockery. "My DNA meets your DNA, DNA dates DNA, DNA screws DNA and they make a whole lotta' baby DNA's. If you don't want that, you better get out soon."

"I heard the lectures too and watched the videos." Lover was too old for him anyway. "I know all about the chemistry and the "bonding" that's supposed to happen." And why should he settle for an old guy who hates him? "Sorry - _not_ feelin' it." Locks glanced at Lovers lower belly. It was flat and . . just a stomach. What would it look like, he wondered, rounded and . . ._tight? _

"Liar. And I'm not saying you'll _get_ some." Lover was seated well down in the chair, legs apart, his tee-shirt riding up just a little, the flesh of his abdomen exposed. "I'm just saying you'll _want_ some."

Locks licked his lips, sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Oh, _this_ was a good idea." _Lover. What a name!_ _God!_ Locks shifted in his chair, he just wanted to slap the man down and hold him in his place and . . and somehow cover his body . . .

_Who would want __**him**__? Who in their right mind would want to knock __**him**__ up?_ _Get him . . .pre- . . .pregnant? Pregnant. A __**pregnant **__Lover. __**Babies**__ inside him. Any ones', Chocolates, Prettys', even — . _

Locks' mind was instantly suffused with images of _his_ babies. His own children. _His_ sperm and cock and cum impregnating another man. A _man._ _That_ man.

Lover? _No way. Not __**him!**_

_But __**my**__ babies? _Locks shook his head a little to crumble the persistently shaping forms of the impossible visions. Pictures flashed on an endless loop and his penetrating stiff cock was the star, driving into Lover - giving it to him hard! His sperm shooting like a cannon, filling him, making Lover moan in his willingness to allow whatever his mate wanted. Anything at all. Dreams spewed and erupted of Locks - _some other Locks! _- fucking Lover, his cum making dozens of babies inside Lovers' warm, tight belly. _Lovers'_ belly?

Locks stared unblinkingly. It was, really, a _nice_ belly.

_Why would Pretty want to fuck Lover? But Chocolates' already had children by Lover. Lover actually carried Chocolates' babies. Chocolate fucked him and made him pregnant. Pretty lay on top of him and gave it to him over and over and over . . ._

They made Lover pregnant. Pregnant._Pregnant!_ Locks' mind kept repeating the word to him over and over like a mantra or a . . .Calling. A siren.

Locks' babies. _His_ babies. His own children. His cum and his mate and his mates' tight, warm, _sweet belly_. . .

_Lover __**pregnant?**_

XXX

The two days ended and Locks knew he had to get out of there. "I want kids. He doesn't." Locks swallowed hard and violently thrust his few clothes into a small plastic bag. "Our little two day "vacation" together didn't work. I've asked to be reassigned elsewhere." He choked up and angrily snapped at Chocolate. "Thanks for nothing!"

Chocolate watched helplessly. He had returned home to find Locks packing. There wasn't much to pack. "Locks. Stay." He sighed. Why couldn't anything ever be simple with Lover? "Look. You've only been here, not even a week."

But he knew tensions were high between them. Lover had adamantly refused pregnancy for Locks and despite their chemical hold on Lovers' reproductive make-up, Lover had resisted every advance from either himself or Pretty, announcing to each of them during their individual attempts at seduction - "Sorry. I've closed up shop."

Lover refused to listen to arguments and rejected reason altogether for granting any more pregnancies for Laurents' program until he was allowed visiting rights to his babies. Chocolate and Pretty, their own eager organs sensing Lover was ready to breed again, had both endured days of blue balls.

Chocolate urged. "Let me talk to him again."

"Haven't you noticed?" Locks asked bitterly. "That isn't working."

"Just wait. I'll get to the bottom of this." So Locks can get to Lovers' bottom, Chocolate hoped.

Locks plopped down on the bed. "Fine. Try, for all the good it'll do." _Will it? It might. Maybe. Lover pregnant. Lover pregnant. _Locks managed to drive away the erotic images but the words wouldn't stop.

Chocolate found Lover sitting at a table in one of the staff cafeterias. He had managed to talk someone into a cup of real coffee, a worthy feat since BM's weren't allowed it. Bad for babies. In private, Pretty regularly broke that rule for him.

Chocolate sat down opposite Lover and the odor of the dark, rich beverage made Chocolate's mouth water.

"You here to talk me into letting Locks into my pants?"

"Yeah. And to find out why, _really why_, you won't."

Lover drained the cup and shoved it to one side. He folded his hands on the table between himself and his mate. "For all the reasons I told you. No more babies until I can see the ones I already made. Besides . . .he's too young."

"He's the same age as me."  
Lover paused. "It's too weird. It'd be like sleeping with my own son."

Chocolate laughed a little. "Trust me, Locks - Chase - never saw you as a father figure. You treated him just like you treated everyone - like a jerk. I know he respects that."

Lover thought differently. He remembered when Chase had become assistant attending of the surgical department. At almost any request, Chase would perform procedures for him with hardly a question. He remembered Chase hugging him when he thought he had cancer.

Lover didn't think he could properly articulate the whys he felt the way he did. Maybe it was simply control. He'd had to lap up every dish Laurent had set out and he needed to take control over some part of his life again. Plus he had thinking to do and couldn't do that when his hormones shot out of control whenever he allowed either Chocolate or Pretty to touch him. He'd taken to sleeping on the floor to avoid their grabby hands. So he was booting Chase out the door again.

All of that was too much to explain to Chocolate so all he said was "Back then, Chase liked me for some reason."

"That was over three years ago." Chocolate said. "And, no he didn't like you. No one did. Can't you see how right it is for him to be here hating you all over again?" Chocolate encouraged. "It's like the old days, only he is _Locks_ now. We're the same people only we're not. Same earth but a different world. Give him a chance. With time, Locks could get _used_ to liking you."

"If I let him near me, chemically, he won't have a choice."

"Look I couldn't stand you and now I can't stay out of your underwear. You've literally got me by the balls."

"The bat too." Lover sighed. Looked at his hands. "I need time. That plus with _three_ of you humping me, it'll be nothing but work, work, work and I'll never get any sleep."

Chocolate tried to read what was behind that. Lover often labeled sincerity with humor. "O . . .kay." He said. "How much time?"

"I want a day to think about it."

"I think I can convince him to stay that much longer."

-

-

Chocolate and Lover walked back to their cramped living quarters passing maintenance people and nurses with their wheeled trays on the way. Lover stopped to ask a

nurse he recognized, "Rory is it?"

When he got a nod, "When will Laurent next be in his office?" Lover leaned heavily on the small table laden with nursing things.

Chocolate noticed. "Leg bad today?"

Lover nodded, managing a hard swallow and grimaced.

"Are you okay?" Chocolate asked.

Lover nodded. "I just need some sleep."

Rory answered. "Laurent will be in his office on Friday. He's rounding with the new staff and the regular Assist's."

Chocolate recognized the lingo. Rounding was introducing new doctors to his lectures. His assistants would then take the new people on routine rounds to show them the ropes.

They arrived back home. "Why did you need to know about Laurent?" Chocolate asked.

"Well. You think I should just go with the program and let Locks into the sheep fold. I have to tell Laurent I'm cooperating again, don't I? He's probably already planning to split up this romantic dysfunctional herd we've created."

Chocolate nodded, opening the door for him. "You don't have to be so negative about it."

"Um, this is _me_ you're talking to." Lover reminded him. "I'm going to lie down for a while."

Pretty greeted him with a peck to his cheek and Lover closed the door to the bedroom. "He's okay?" He asked Chocolate.

"Yeah." Chocolate plopped down in a chair himself. "Just tired." He looked over at Locks. "I think you're in."

"Tired?" Pretty repeated. "Are you sure that's all it is?"

"Sure I'm sure."

-

-

Half an hour later Lover appeared at the bedroom door.

Pretty stared in shock. "Lover, you're _blotchy_."

"Morning to you too." Lover moved slowly to a chair, leaning heavily on his cane, and falling into it. Chocolate abandoned the card game he and Locks had been playing. "Hey!" Locks complained.

"I was winning anyway." Chocolate said but his attention was immediately on Lover. He felt his forehead. "You're too warm." He took the underside of Lovers left wrist under two fingers. "And your heart is galloping. What the hell is going on?"

Lover pulled his hand away. "Let go. Nothing. I'm fine."

Without being asked Pretty retrieved the thermometer from the kitchen cabinet and made Lover stick it under his tongue.

With the offending thing protruding from his lips, "Derz nothin' wong wif meh." Lover said.

"Stop talking." Chocolate waited, crouched down on his haunches, for the device to do its one assigned task. After a minute, he pulled it out. "A hundred." He announced to Pretty then to Lover. "You're going to the infirmary."

"No I'm not." Lover sat back in the chair to show them he was not going anywhere. "This is just a little cold."

Chocolate stood, looking over at Locks. "Call for a Gurney." Locks stepped out into the hall and complied. To Lover, "In this place, there's no such thing a just a cold." One of Chocolate's fine eyebrows arched to make its own point. "This could turn serious and you know it."

Lover sighed. "I liked it better when you people hated me."

"Liar." Chocolate took hold of Lovers' left hand. It was hot to the touch. "Come on, stand up. Let's get you into the hall, they'll be here in a minute."

Once the orderlies arrived wearing their paper masks and gloves and transported a complaining Lover to the Infirmary, he was made comfortable in a Med' Bed. His vitals were determined and jotted down.

"You were right to bring him in." Doctor Whorley said. Sputum, blood and urine were drawn and sent to the lab, then Lovers' two regular mates and his one potential mate were herded out the door.

Whorley said, "You can come see him when I've cleared him. And you'll all have to give Jake, the night nurse, some samples of your own. Plus you're confined to your quarters. No work duties and no going to any common areas until we know what this is. The last thing we need is an outbreak."

They left Lover in Whorleys' capable hands.

-

-

-

Hours later, "What do you think is wrong with him?" Locks asked.

"I don't know." Chocolate answered. All three had tried to drink lousy tea and play cards to make themselves more at ease but it was just a ruse for their feelings. "But the symptoms suggest a cold. Maybe a stomach bug. Bad bit of food maybe."

Pretty wandered into the bedroom. He was tired but he wasn't sure he could sleep without Lover there, safe and sound. He laid down on the unmade bed, stretching out, his fingers linked behind his head. First thing in the morning, he would go down and talk to Whorley and check on the lab results. Chocolate was right. It was probably just a cold or a turned bit of vegetables he had eaten. Lover wasn't above pinching extra food when no one was looking.

Pretty turned on his side and something stung him. He jumped up on his knees with a tiny _yip_ and then felt with his fingers along the left side of his chest, expecting to find bug pinchers or a stinger jutting out of his skin. Beneath his arm pit he felt for and found a tiny puncture. A spot of blood seeped through his pale blue shirt. An insect? A needle maybe?

Pretty searched around under the sheets and covers for something black and crawling.

What he found wasn't black and couldn't crawl. He held up the offending object between two fingers. "That son-of-a-"

Pretty opened the bedroom door so fast both Locks and Chocolate were startled out of their poker winnings. Locks' pile of Kracker Krisps was higher than Chocolates.

Pretty stood there before them, holding out something between two fingers.

Locks recognized what it was first. "A syringe? What do you have a syringe for?"

"I don't." Pretty answered. "_Lover_ has the syringe. _Had_ the syringe. Now he has what was _in_ the syringe. In _him."_

Chocolate slapped his cards down on the table. "He injected himself." Then his eyes widened. "That lying -- he _snitched_ it from Rory's tray. Earlier." He shook his head at himself. "He pretended to be sick and I fell for it." He snatched the syringe from Pretty and examined the remaining micro drop left in the plunger. "Could be anything."

Pretty sighed and rubbed his face. "No. He's got some kind of _plan_, so whatever it was . . ."

Locks said, looking closely at the liquid and the size of the needle. "Probably an emetic. Muscle injection." He looked up at them. "I heard there's a donor living in the ward who sleep walks sometimes. Eats weird things in the night. They have to make him up-chuck occasionally."

Locks picked up the cards and shuffled them. "It's an old trick. You inject yourself, then force yourself not to puke for a while. Puts your blood pressure up, raises your heart rate, shoots up your temp'. Takes real self control. Med' students used to do it to get out of an autopsy observation. They'd hold their vomit until just before entering the room. Got them a quick if messy exit."

"You'd weasel out of a queasy autopsy observation by _making _yourself sick for real?" Pretty asked.

Locks huffed. "Right. And I suppose neither of you ever missed a single class in pre-med?" Locks shrugged. "Besides - it works. I mean you're not really surprised he would try something? Lover wants to see his babies. I don't care what name he goes by now, he's _House_. Lover is _House. _He's probably puking and mocking all three of us right now." Though Locks himself looked amused. "And I don't blame him. He should be allowed to see them."

Pretty dropped the syringe in the rarely used trash can. "Whatever was in here, he obviously doesn't have a cold."

-

-

-

"How far do you think he got?" Chocolate asked.

Pretty followed him.

Locks was instructed to stay behind at their quarters in the highly unlikely event that Lover returned there.

"I don't know. No where if he's still in quarantine."

Chocolate checked his watch. "They would have had the lab results back two hours ago."

"Then if he's still in the general recovery ward, I hope he got no farther than the locked infirmary doors."

-

-

-

The General Ward was guarded but not sternly so. Most of the not very ill patients were happy with the change of venue and being pampered in bed. Chocolate and Pretty both had on "civilian" clothing, having forgot all about their paper-cover-alls - required garb in specific areas of the facility including the Infirmary Intensive room which was where Whorley would have initially placed Lover.

Pretty glanced through the thick glass of the large observation window from the hallway outside. This is where people could visit at night, at least in a visual way.

In the regular Recovery ward, only two beds were occupied. Neither man was Lover. Beyond the regular Recovery, through more thick glass, Intensive was conspicuously empty.

"Looks like he already slipped out." Pretty said.

"How the hell did he get passed the guard?"

Chocolate glanced at the tall man with his arms crossed and head bobbing. "You mean sleepy guy over there?"

"He'll already be at Incubation."

"Well, he'll never get passed those guys. And if he's caught, Laurent might insist on punishment. Lover could be re-assigned."

Pretty pointed up at the tiny box in the corner of the ceiling and wall pivoting back and forth on its electric mount. "Do any of these cameras actually work?"

Chocolate considered. "Not sure. They claim they're on twenty-four hours a day. But if no one's nabbed him yet, maybe that's just a verbal device to discourage misbehavior?"

"_Chains _don't discourage Lover." With his fingers, Pretty worried the back of his neck, picking and pulling at his hair. "I don't want to lose him. If he's there and hasn't got caught yet, we lie. We lie for us _and_ him if necessary. If he has got caught, " He said to Chocolate, "we beg."

Walking quickly and quietly in the dimmed lighting of simulated night-time toward the Infirmary, Chocolate stopped and turned so suddenly, Pretty almost ran into him. Chocolate took Prettys face in his hands and kissed him quickly on the lips. "Don't worry. We're not going to lose our lying, stubborn, manipulative, sexy, sweet-bellied bastard."

XXX

Part XIV ASAP


	14. Chapter 14

Gone With the World

--

Part XIV

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains sexual situations -- SLASH. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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Chocolate passed a small group family of three standing outside of their quarters, looking insulted. Sounds of drawers being opened and things being shoved back and forth emanated from their humble dwelling.

Chocolate stopped. "Michael, isn't it?" He said the tall Asian man, a sire he'd seen on and off the General Ward. the fellow leaned against the wall and watched from pinched brows as two beefy orderlies ransacked their little home. Michaels' much younger blonde BM stood beside him, arms crossed, looking angry as hell. The roundness of his lower belly, a pronounced bulge just pushing his shirt up enough to expose a mound of red flushed skin, showed he was clearly in an advanced state of pregnancy.

"What's up?" Chocolate asked.

Michael nodded at the orderlies. "One of the nurses came up short three syringes today. They're tossing everyone's place." He said to Pretty. "Better get back there."

Pretty heard. "I'll go back." He spoke into Chocolates' ear, now remembering the syringe he had innocently, and stupidly, dumped in their kitchen trash can. "You have more clearance anyway and I'll explain to Locks what's going on. You keep looking for him." Pretty bit his lip. "Find him."

Chocolate nodded. "I will." He walked passed the commotions taking place in everyone' private quarters and left the Special Project Ward for the General. Though it was not his shift, he knew his presence wouldn't be seriously questioned as his face had become familiar to the nurses and orderlies on most duty shifts.

Chocolate passed into another short darkened hallway. A thick metal door greeted him. Its' window was woven through with wire and held and a sign designating where it lead: Copulation.

Chocolate had been to almost all areas of the facility. Laurent had granted him more and more access due to his, and Prettys', high level of cooperation and assistance. Chocolate had seen this area, Records and Archives, and Sterilization, where the careers of very old or very sick sires and BM's were "retired".

At the end of another night-dimmed hallway, Chocolate found the entry he needed.

It was one of two entries that lead to the Incubation Ward, where hundreds of embryos were kept to in stages grow into fetuses and then babies before finally being sent away to become children elsewhere in the State.

Chocolate didn't have clearance for this area but one thing about being a doctor with a nearly free pass, he had learned a few things. Like when to notice a careless person entering his code while he looked over his shoulder.

Chocolate had no idea how Lover had gained access but he wasn't stupid. Lover had two good eyes and was perfectly capable of spying on others' carelessness as well.

But how had he managed to slip passed the guards at the very entry into Incubation itself? The obvious answer was the other two syringes Lover had taken from Rorys' tray.

Such was confirmed when Chocolate came upon two large men in uniforms sleeping peacefully on the hallway floor. He didn't doubt the syringes had been quick acting anesthetics. Chocolate couldn't wait to hear Lover tell _that_ story.

Chocolate looked up at the ever present camera system, its black metallic head panning back and forth in the corner of the ceiling. No one had arrived to stop Lover. The conclusion was that the cameras were for show - maybe psychological control - and nothing more.

Chocolate noticed Lover had kept the door jammed open by shoving one of the guards feet in between the door and the jamb. He stepped over the prone figure, and swung the glass and steel partition just wide enough to squeeze himself through, making sure the door-stop foot stayed in its place.

The interior was huge. Like walking into an airline hanger after everyone had gone home, so dark and quiet. But it was not a warehouse of glass, metal and smoking engines, but of flesh, blood and new life.

The embryo incubation chambers, or wells, were each two feet deep and concave, like half an eggshell set into the metal decking. Beneath the decking ran miles of wire and tubes, all inter-connected to a shared power supply and each other.

The lipped edges of each rose another twelve inches above the floor. Rows and rows of wells, hundreds of baby basins, all hooked up to drip lines pumping in air and rich food, the coils of lines snaking under and around every one.

Chocolate stepped closer. Inside each well, protected by a clear polymer shield, was a single sac swimming in a gelatinous bath. The pools of liquid shone their glassy glow into the dark, the combined light of them creating a thick not there blanket of blue-white shimmer. Each well was also sustained with its own redundant oxygen, nutrient and power supply in addition to being hooked into the facilities main power grid.

With all that machinery, the only noise was the soothing the hum of the machines themselves providing air and food, and circulating the rich baths of warmth over the hundreds of living sacs, each cradling dozens of babies. Perhaps a thousand embryos slept here, and every single one was someones' offspring. Someone's baby. _Children._

Somewhere in here were Lovers' babies. _Their _babies. And Lover himself.

Chocolate made himself hurry up and find him. He did a speedy but careful search row by row and had covered almost half the ward when he discovered Lover sitting on the floor, his back up against the smooth side of a well, his cane lying beside him. An abandoned appendage.

One well looked just like any other. Each were clearly marked with an assigned number and lettered row but nothing else.

Lover knew that now for the truth it was. When Chocolate approached, he looked up with miserable eyes. His defeated hands were linked together, his knees bent with his elbows casually resting on them, like he was sitting on a grassy hill on a sunny day. Nothing to do.

"I . . .don't know wh-which they are." Lover said simply, his voice breaking just the once and that barely perceptible. Only because he knew and loved him, had Chocolate heard it.

In the dim light of the wells' liquid glow, the white of Lovers' eyes shined red. His face had been wet. Dried tracks ran from the fine wrinkles around his eyes to his chin on either side of his mouth. Lover waved a hand toward the vast area of nameless children. "They're in here somewhere I guess."

Chocolate thought: His heart is scraped raw.

"One of these," Lover mumbled,". . .which one?" He laughed. A single sour, humorless blip "I've no idea. . ." He spread his hands in a helpless shrug.

Chocolate sat down in front of him, crossing his legs, and looked at his terribly upset mate. Never before Outbreak had he seen this man weep. Losing his mobility, being shot, even the death of his father and finally, losing everything in the Virals' destruction it seemed, had not broken him.

But take a mans' children away, tell him he can never even see them, be part of them, be acknowledged as having had any part to do with them, was too much to ask of anyone.

Their current state of existence as a litter of embryo's cocooned in a sac of fat and proteins not-with-standing, they were still his children. His babies. It would be a rare man who could endure that kind of pain and not turn an eye to grief.

"Hey." Chocolate leaned toward him and brushed away the already drying wetness with his thumbs. Lover allowed the touch, not even flinching.

Somehow children, or even the hope of them, altered people, sometimes in ways too profound to define. Chocolate doubted Lover himself could accurately diagnose why he was crying over children he had never seen nor would likely ever meet. "We'll get through this." He said gently. "We'll figure something out. We're a team." Chocolate tried to lighten Lovers' heart with the smallest tease. "We're _the_ _Team_. Remember?"

Chocolate pulled him into a tender kiss then stood, offering his hand.

Lover stared up for a moment, his every fiber filled with indecision. Then he somehow reached the logical conclusion that there was nothing he could change by continuing to sit where he was.

Chocolate walked him back to their quarters only to find Laurent had been called out by a suspicious orderly.

When Chocolate and Lover entered, Laurent, who had been leaning against the counter, clearly waiting patiently for their arrival, dismissed the orderlies with a wave of his hand.

"They didn't find anything." Pretty said to his mates as they entered.

Chocolate stared questioningly at Laurent, the Senior Administrator and Physician. "There was nothing to find." Chocolate answered then gestured to Laurent. "So why are you here?"

Locks explained, a bit sarcastically for Laurents benefit, "Because finding nothing seems to mean that we're guilty. Seems Doctor Laurent can't believe we wouldn't be hiding some sort of contraband."

"Us?" Chocolate looked at Pretty with affection. "Not with Mister Clean Jeans as a room mate."

Pretty smiled in an affectionately annoyed way.

"No we didn't find anything here." Laurent stated though he did not sound put out by it. "But I, not being a stupid man, know your BM," He addressed Lover directly, "took the syringes."

'The name's Lover." Lover stared back, his expression the personification of defiance. He eased his tired leg into the biggest easy chair, hooking his cane over the arm rest. Defiance of rest was one thing his old injury never tolerated for long.

"However," Laurent continued. "I'm willing to overlook it." He stood straighter with his hands in his coat pockets. "Because for one thing, my guards were made sleepy but not hurt-"

"-_of course_ they weren't." Lover said, his eyes dark and angry, his emotions still sparking like a broken power line.

"And," Laurent continued, ignoring the man's ingratitude but gratified with himself that he had correctly guessed who the thieving malcontent was (having already experienced Lovers' stubborn nature, not difficult), "I know your intent wasn't to cause harm." He removed his glasses and blew on them, checking for dust, then returned them to his face. "You simply wanted to see your babies."

It had been a naked act of human soul on Lovers' part. Laurent let out a large lung full of tension. "I trust you believe me now when I said that was impossible." Laurent cleared his throat significantly to impress that what he was going to say next was something very good of him. "I am willing to explore the possibility of _future_ visitation access to birth parents and their sires on a limited basis, providing this program has the success you claim it will." From the beginning, Laurent, as determined as he was to keep things running smoothly, was intelligent enough to accept there would be ripples in the workings and the progress. He also knew these men, educated as they were, understood that just as clearly.

Lover didn't share Laurents' willingness to wait. The future always arrived by days piling upon days, then years upon years until one of those years would come announcing that it was too late for him, time abandoning him to old age and sickness. He would be buried in his grave without having ever seen any child he had given birth to. "That's not good enough."

Pretty rubbed worried eyes and Chocolate looked like he was ready to gag their trouble-making mate.

Laurent nodded. "No, it isn't, but it's all I have. My hands, Lover, are tied. You want to see your babies." Laurent sighed. It already felt like a long day. "Do you think you're the _only_ one?"

Laurent shook his head and walked to the door. "I have to get back. I've got nearly two dozen new Sires and BM's being brought in tomorrow. People are requesting to get in here now, you know. They know this is where the future lies, so our work is cut out for us for a long, long time."

Not without sympathy, Laurent looked down at Lover. "Be a part of it willingly or don't. But you are not going to get everything you want. I simply don't have it to give." Laurents tone was weary but where it counted he was soft enough to share something good. "The numbers, by the way, indicate a slight upward fluctuation in the survival rate among the controlled groups program. Your theory may indeed be correct." Addressing all of them, "This program could work."

On his way out Laurent paused by the door and spoke a few quiet words to Chocolate who nodded. Then he left.

Lover silently rose out of his chair just as he tried to climb out of the depression that had settled on him sometime between discovering he had no idea which babies were his and, gleaning from what Laurent had said, little hope that he ever would. Without saying goodnight, he went to bed.

Chocolate watched him close the door. Silence in Lover was a manifestation of his sadness. Chocolate looked at Locks. "You staying?"

Locks bit his cheek. Exhaling once through his nose at the drama he had just witnessed, "I doubt any other place would he half as interesting. Even out in the Rough."

Locks stood and jabbed a finger at the bedroom door. "I'll tell you one thing, only Hou- Lov - _that guy_ could turn upside-down something that was already upside-down. S'like running away from the circus to join a Smash-up Derby."

Pretty asked him with thick well pronounced syllables. "So _are-you-stay-ing?"_

Locks sat down at the table and started to re-shuffle the cards. "'Course I'm staying."

Chocolate looked at Pretty, jerking his head toward the bedroom door. "You wanna' tell him? Locks and I can sleep out here tonight. I'll requisition an extra mattress and blankets."

Pretty nodded and went into the bedroom where Lover already was, closing the door behind him. He undressed and climbed in beside his nude mate.

Pretty inched close to Lovers' warm body, draping one arm across his chest. "What are you going to do?"

Lover lay on his back, one had behind his head, staring sleeplessly up into the darkness. He shrugged. "Nothing I can do."

"Locks wants to stay. You okay with that?"

"Sure."

Pretty frowned at that. "I thought you were adamant about not sleeping with him because - "

"I say a lot of things when I'm trying to get my own way. Since I can't get that, it doesn't matter."

Though he felt a sharp pang of jealousy at the thought of another male in the group vying for Lovers affection and body, that it was Locks made him feel better.

Locks' body would end up craving Lover as his did, but it was unlikely Locks was going to fall in love with Lover as he had. He adored Lover more than anything in the world. Even without the promise of sex or children, he would never leave him.

"So? How do you want to do this?" Pretty asked.

Lover sighed like it didn't matter. "I don't know. Whatever night he wants to, send him in." Lover turned his back away from Pretty and closed his eyes to allow sleep. "When ever he's ready I guess."

Lovers' voice held no enthusiasm for it. Pretty thought it seemed to him, what was, simply _was_ and beyond spreading his legs when asked, Lover no longer cared.

XXX

Chocolate and Pretty left them alone again for a night to get better "acquainted". Chocolates' word for it.

Locks watched Lover pace back and forth across the short expanse of sitting room. "Are you nervous?"

"I'm in pain."

Locks tried not to look disappointed. Pain certainly had potential to dampen the fun. "Sorry. You got anything for that?"

"Nope." Lover paced.

Locks nodded miserably. "Uh, Look, I don't know. . . how . . this usually . . . I mean what do you guys usually do?"

"We usually go into the bedroom, get naked and fuck like homo-bunnies."

_  
How romantic_. Locks sighed, watching Lover pace. He wore a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his eyes were narrowed from the discomfort of his leg.

Locks tried again. "I'm sort of new at this. Can you at least tell me what things you _like_?"

Lover scowled at him a little. "_Nothing_. Why does it matter anyway?" He threw a hand Locks' way, tired of the school yard questions. "Do you need an instruction book or something?" Lovers insides were screaming for a man to hurry up and hump him already. His pain, however, was telling him to take a hand full of pills, or a long hot bath or maybe shoot himself. He didn't have the option for any of those.

Yet his empty womb, his twitching muscles, boiling blood, even his backside were all but writhing, aching for a long and vigorous fucking. His libido and his pain had been screaming at each other for the last hour.

And there sat his sire for the evening, picking at his sleeve, wondering what to do. Lover tried to bite his tongue. Jabs and insults were not going to make this night go any better or Locks any hornier.

"No." Locks looked hurt. Maybe this was too weird, he thought. Lover suddenly stopped pacing and leaned on the small square of kitchen counter, easing his weight off the offending appendage. His leg was fast shouting down his sorry, neglected sex organs.

Locks thought of something. "I know how to fix that." Locks said, gesturing to his thigh. He could help if Lover was willing.

Lover seemed skeptical. "Do you know many times someone's tried to get into my pants that way?'

Locks stood and walked over. "Oh, hundreds I'll bet. Do you want to feel better or not?"

Lover grimaced. Now that he was supposed to be getting pregnant, he couldn't have any pain killers at all and it made life even more miserable. At least he wasn't detoxing. But the old thigh injury was behaving terribly. He had been shitty to Locks all evening. In way of apology, he raised his eyes to him gratefully and nodded.

Locks took Lovers' elbow and lead him to the bedroom. "Just take off your pants and lie down."

"If this is foreplay, you get a D."

"Shut up and listen. I took a month massage training one summer in pre-med. I learned enough to know that massage can make a hell of a difference in pain levels."

Lover did as he was told and lay back. "Just to warn you, Lover Junior might get curious and try to watch."

Locks smiled. "Yeah, okay. I don't mind an audience if you don't."

Lover allowed a small margin of amusement and Locks could see the worn out years behind that faded smile. Houses' - _Lovers'_ - ( for some reason he was having trouble getting used to that name. Funny, he quickly adopted Chocolates' and Prettys new aliases.) eyes were just as brilliant blue as he remembered but they were tired eyes now. Too much had happened. Too many demands on his body compounded with too many withdrawals on his soul.

He felt much the same himself. "Lover, you know we're more alike than you realize."

Locks waited until Lover glanced his way. "I hate being told what to do, too. Now," He gave Lover a tiny sideways smile, "shut-up and listen."

Locks pressed the tips of his fingers very gently into the area of missing and wasted muscle on Lovers right thigh. The man had finely muscled legs. Long and masculine. Shapely legs as though put together from the finest that nature had to offer. And nice shapes beneath the fabric of his underwear.

As Locks probed the depths of Lovers muscles, Lover winced less and less. Finally Locks heard what he had been anticipating, a long drawn out sigh that told him as clearly as words that the pain had lessened, maybe even disappeared. He had heard that sigh of relief often enough from others to recognize its significance.

"Better?" He asked.

Lover was resting with one hand over his eyes as though he was drifting off to sleep. "Yes." He sounded calm again, the vocal chords not straining to speak through the pain. He added, "Thank you."

"No problem." Locks continued to touch and stroke the cavity, but switched to caresses. He stroked the healthy tissue surrounding the scar as well. Curious, "Are you happy?" He asked Lover. "You know, being in this place. Making babies?"

Lover answered only after a moment. "It's pretty much all I'm good for here. It's all they'll let me do to contribute to Laurents great _Program."_

Chocolate and Pretty had explained to him the new program suggested by Lover himself. He had also learned Lover had diagnosed the miscarriage problems through his own personal and painful experience.

Lover completed his thought. "But, no, I'm not happy."

Locks decided not to dwell on that. "But you don't mind . . I mean you _want_ the kids you're producing? I mean, you _want_ to contribute?"

Lover replied with a word that encouraged no further debate. "It's the only use they see in me here." His heart ached in a weird two-folded effect. Hating that being a breeder was all he was allowed to do and hating that he wasn't allowed to see the children he was forced to produce. The contradiction yet similarity in the feelings kept him constantly on the edge of crazed and no reason or deduction effectively eased it.

Lover added. "I guess it's okay." Not the whole truth of course.

"So," Locks ventured. He could hear the voice in his own loins ordering him to attention. "The you don't _now_ mind the idea of me. . .and you, us, making a baby or two . . ?"

Lover lifted his arm from his eyes to look down his body at him. "Keep up the massaging on a regular basis and I'm yours."

Locks felt a powerful jolt in his balls at that moment that almost made him yelp. Something downstairs was stirring and it wasn't pea soup.

Locks impulsively leaned over and kissed Lovers' scar, earning him a tiny gasp from Lovers lips.

The sound itself quickly made him as hard as he had ever felt. He wanted to mount the man right then.

Locks was shocked at the response just being in Lovers' proximity caused in him physically. Chemical romance indeed.

Watching Lovers' expression the while time, he unbuttoned Lovers shirt and slide the material off his shoulders. Then pulled down his boxers in one smooth motion.

Locks next slipped out of his own clothing as fast as he could, climbing onto the bed with Lover and laying full on him.

"Is this all right?" he asked Lover.

Pretty had explained a few things to him prior to tonight. How to maximize the contact of their skin, the chemical exchange ran both ways.

Locks searched Lovers eyes and was gratified to see his pupils dilate, his respirations increase and his mouth drop open. When he licked his lips, Locks almost came.

He kissed him and, not waiting for a kiss back, pushed his tongue inside Lovers mouth, wanting to taste every hidden corner.

Locks sucked in a breath when suddenly Lovers' perfect thighs spread and he wrapped his legs around his back, right up beneath his armpits.

"Oh!" It was a tantalizing surprise, "Oh-h. O-o-o-o-o-o _god_ . . . " Locks breathed into Lovers' mouth and began moving his body up and down on Lovers' sweet tasting skin, loving his form, hungry for his sex, craving him. Every dark and unexplored chamber. "Mm-m-m-m-m."

Locks rubbed himself in circles, his cock already harder than the bedpost. Lovers' responded in kind and Locks wrapped his fist around it. He blurted crudely, "I'm going to fuck your ass so hard."

Locks stared down at Lover, shocked that he was enjoying him so much. _I can't believe how much I'm liking this bastard! Why the hell do I want to fuck him so much? I want to! Jeszus I want to so __**BAD! **_

He growled at Lover. "Oh fuck am I ever going to cock you up!" Locks slipped his muscled arms underneath Lovers' rib cage and pulled himself closer to him, as together as he could make their bodies get. He wanted to be on, around and inside him all at once. He wanted Lover to give him everything he wanted exactly when he wanted it.

Staring into Lovers eyes, "Spread your legs wider." Locks ordered, just to see if Lover would do it. Just to know if Lover wanted him as badly. Lover never once blinked or protested. All he did was say yes with his legs, wrapping them around Locks upper body and lifting his ass to him, making Locks want to shout and curse with lust.

"By the end of this night, you're going to be so goddamn pregnant! So . . so pregn-AHHH!" The sensation in his cock was too intense for idle chatter. Locks went crazy when he suddenly remembered that, as incredibly horny and wild as he was already feeling, he wasn't even _inside _Lover yet. That tight, hot ride was still to come. Locks' head spun on its axis that he was fucking Lover. And his old _boss_ too. That thought swelled his cum center an entire pants size.

Lover put his lips to Locks' left ear and whispered in a breath so charged with ardor, Locks grew dizzy, "I want you to. All my Sires do. Now I want _yoursssss."_

Locks was his sire now too and the heady rush of impregnating a BM, this male, his _mate_, he could hardly contain his emotions. The physical sensations alone were driving him mad.

Sex was something fresh and untouched. It was his first time all over again, only fifty times hotter. He could feel his desire climbing, climbing up and up, out of control. Red-lining until the glare of fucking his sweet mate was blinding him - but he didn't want to see anyway - that might _end_ it!

Locks entered Lover with a single hard thrust and Lover moaned in the pleasure of it. "Oh, m-my-my _god_ . . ." Locks began murmuring sweet nothings in Lovers' ear and pumping with all the power of the youth left in his body, fucking for all he as worth, feeling his orgasm rushing like freight train on a straight track to paradise. "Oh - god!! Lover, oh baby, Loveryousweetsweetgoddamn_fuck_!"

Lover stared up at him from beneath, his eyes almost black with pupil, his lips parted and hungry, his body yielding to the demands of Locks sexual hunger. Locks knew he would shoot his fluid right through Lovers body and out the other side - through the _world_. Make a hole in the planet so all would know he pounded it home to this man and planted ten thousand seeds in his perfect belly.

Every human being on the face of the earth would know he had fucked him.

Lover _pregnant_ because of him.

"Oh, oh, fuck, oh _fuck!_ Ohgodohgod. I'm going to knock you so fucking _up_!" Locks kissed him hard, in disbelief at himself that a few short hours ago he thought that this would be difficult, that he might not want to finish or might grow nervous and back out before the deed was done.

Foolish far away thoughts of a child that carried no power; no weight - no worth at all. Not anymore. Laughable really, that he had even considered those possibilities.

"Oh baby. Oh, yeah, mmmmmm . . ." _Pregnantpregnantpregnant_ . . . The word came back to scream itself in his mind over and over. He wanted it so bad. Lover pregnant for him. Taking it for him. Wrapping his legs around his back for him. "Take it baby. Take it from me. Always - god - _always!"_

Lover whispered one more word in his ears and his head swam and kicked in an ocean of urgent liquid. It washed over and through him. A sexual tide he would ride forever.

Locks shouted the words of his orgasm into the pillow, emptying his body into Lover, imagining Lovers body drinking him in, his belly filling, filling, with his cum. Filling until he was heavy with it. Locks bucked and bucked, insane with the orgy of Lovers body beneath him -

- then collapsed on him, ragged and content, panting in his ear.

After a moment of catching breath, "Oh, I'm going to do that to you a _hell _of a lot more." He kissed Lover hard on the mouth, still wanting to possess him, mouth ass, belly and all. He would swallow Lovers' moans at every opportunity from here-on.

Locks lay very still on Lovers body, passing his fingers softly through his mates' hair and listening to the rapid beat of his heart.

Breaking the tender moment, Lover asked, "So? This thing between us, think it might work?"

XXXXXXXXX

Part XV ASAP


	15. Chapter 15

Gone With the World

Part XV

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains sexual situations -- SLASH. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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Chocolate ran his strong hands up and down Lovers' sides. This was something he loved doing to him, as Lovers' skin was not only incredibly sensitive but also, as his telltale jumps and gasps of delight testified, a little ticklish.

For the previous twelve hours Locks had Lover to himself and so had offered to sleep this night in the living area.

Now Chocolate and Pretty together were sharing Lover, making love to him, kissing his lips and body. Fucking him. Adding their millions of seeds to the fertile nest in Lovers' belly. Over and over all night long they each took turns penetrating his body and filling him again and again while simultaneously adding to each others' pleasures by stroking all cocks in play.

For hours Pretty and Chocolate took him under their own bodies and pumped their life into his, until their DNA spoke to his and knew with proof that conception had occurred, a heavy pregnancy assured. Lovers' body was a mold for their cocks to fill, his muscles a soft clay in their hands, his mouth food for their endless appetites. Lovers' eager compliance to their every want made the hours pass like in a blur of ever burgeoning orgasms, until their very sweat and body salts mixed and cooked up in the cauldron of their cell-fired urge to mate and mate again.

This they would do to him until they vanished from the world.

Lover, finally exhausted from their combined affections and driving cocks, slumped into a pile of rubber bones and tenderized flesh, falling asleep in the wedge of their twin embrace.

Chocolate sighed. He was sleepy too, his balls empty and content, his thick cock at rest. He whispered to Pretty as Lover slept like the dead between them, "Think he's pregnant?"

Pretty smiled, his chest tight with ecstacy at the thought of it. He traced a finger down the side of Lovers' rib-cage and across his abdomen, imaging the blood flushed taut swelling they would see once he began to show, the little bulge that would announce they had successfully knocked up his perfectly divine sex. Pretty leered down at Lover, then looked at Chocolate, one corner of his mouth crooked in a half smile. "If he isn't now, he never will be."

XXX

All too quickly, the ninth day of Lovers pregnancy arrived.

When night fell and Lover felt not a single stirring, not a twinge of discomfort from his parts particular to babies, not a sole sign that he would soon go into labor, Pretty pretended not to worry and spent his energy soothing him. "You'll probably go into labor in the middle of the night. Always with the inconvenience." He teased.

Lover nodded, quietly unconvinced.

Day eleven passed uneventful and Chocolate and Pretty consulted together with Locks while Lover slept in the bedroom behind the closed door.

Three sires, terrified at what the lateness of Lovers' pregnancy might mean, huddled together in the sitting room, heads together with worry.

Pretty rubbed his hands together. He wanted to do something. There was nothing to do. "Do you think the . . ." He tried again to swallow the lump that had risen and lodged in his throat the day before. "Do you think they. . .died inside him?"

Chocolate felt nauseous. He had seen children die. Had witnessed miscarriages and dealt with the emotional aftermath. He'd seen Lover bleed his first sac out in a bloody stew of torn tissue and fluid. This time, for a reason he could not explain, it was worse. "It's a possibility."

"Or," Locks reasoned, "he's simply late. We might have miscalculated-"

"-we're only working with a nine day window here." Chocolate reminded them. "Ten days at most. Since we all know which twenty-four hour period we spent making him pregnant and Lover's at day eleven right now still with no sign of labor. . . there has to be something wrong."

"Yeah." Locks didn't want to drop his protest just yet. "But there's no fading of color. He's warm with blood, and he says he feels fine. We even did a scrape. No ammonia. No smell at all. That indicates no decomposition of the amniotic base."

"But," Chocolate emphasized, "no labor either."

Pretty felt like he was about to lose half the world. The other half. "What do you want to do?" He asked them.

Chocolate sighed and rubbed his face. "Maybe we should call in Laurent."

"What?" Pretty said. "No way. If we're going to call in anyone, call Whorley. He's probably encountered this before."

"And maybe he knows the only solution is to induce labor." Chocolate said. "We have no idea what that will do to the sac or to Lover."

Locks was against the whole thing. "Look, we give it another day. Lovers' old, he's been through a lot, maybe he's just slower than most. You said yourself he's already miscarried twice."

Pretty and Chocolate exchanged looks. Though it was risky, allowing Lover every chance appealed the most. There was agreement all around.

Pretty didn't know how Lover could stand the wait. He was just a sire and he found it difficult to get a full breath. "One more day." He said under his breath. "Twenty-four hours." Too long.

-

-

-

Chocolate made a private request of Whorley to examine Lover when day thirteen arrived without sac. Locks had protested any other action until the consult.

Whorley came back into the sitting area, closing the bedroom door after him. He seemed pensive, his thoughts nowhere but on Lover. "I don't know what to say, gentlemen." Whorley sat at the small kitchen table. "He appears perfectly fit and healthy. Heart-rate good, breathing normal, even the internal noise from the sac sounds within range. A little . . .thicker, higher . .maybe."

"What does that mean?" Locks asked.

"Well, it's possible Lover is carrying far more embryos than usual, raises the tone, the vibration the blood makes passing through the adjacent arteries and veins. More pressure from the sac, blood speeds through under just a little more pressure than usual. But Lovers fine and his pregnancy, other than being unusually long, shows no sign of anything amiss. And honestly, that's unheard of in my experience, particularly for a BM his age. He's fifty-one years old. Almost fifty-two actually, according to his records. But there is so indication of degradation of the sac.

"His belly is full and firm. Plenty of blood circulation - his color is excellent in fact. And the lack of labor, though very out of the ordinary, does not seem to be a factor in this oddly long pregnancy."

Chocolate felt some relief. "But it _is_ abnormal, right?" He probed. "I mean, according to Laurent no BM has ever carried over ten days. Lover's at thirteen _plus_ ten. That's what? Forty percent over normal."

Pretty nodded. "That's a hell of a jump, even for healthy BM half his age."

Whorley nodded, and spread his hands. "I completely agree." He said. "On the other hand, at this time he is healthy. And as long as his health is not in danger, I see no reason to induce labor if his body does not think it's time."

"Could the conceptions have been delayed somehow?" Chocolate asked. "Male pregnancy is still a new evolutionary change, maybe there are mitigating medical or environmental factors we're not aware of yet."

Whorley stood. "That is of course a possibility. All we really know of male pregnancy is what we've seen so far, and we haven't seen much. Not really. Compared to millions of years of female pregnancy and birth, we know almost nothing."

Locks was frustrated by the lack of answers. But then he was a doctor. A lack of answers was hardly a diagnosis. "So what do we do?"

Whorley raised bushy red eyebrows. "I recommend waiting. Eventually something will change and we'll know more."

Pretty saw him to the door, not a long walk since it was at one end of their very small sitting room. "If something happens...?"

Whorley nodded. "If something happens, call me any time of day or night. My direct call code is here." he handed Pretty a slip of paper. "Don't go through regular Emergency without calling me first. I'd like to monitor Lover directly."

Thanking Whorley, Pretty closed the door and turned to his fellow sire-mates.

"I hate doing nothing." Chocolate said.

Locks was resigned to it. Better waiting than losing the babies needlessly. "We do what Whorley said, what Lover would do were he still a doctor - we wait for something to change."

XXX

"How are you feeling today?" Pretty asked Lover.

From a green cup, Lover sipped a tepid watery fluid called "fortified milk", a substance Pretty insisted he daily fill up on in addition to their shared protein-carb meals plumped up with vegetables and fruit for Lovers' special condition. The milk was a pathetic facsimile of the real thing made from calcium powder, albumin and vitamins with sugar.

Lover wanted his babies to be healthy also and to shore up that goal he forced the hated stuff down three times a day. "I wish everyone would stop asking me that." With heroic effort, he downed the last gross swallow. "But, again, I'm fine. Can we drop it?"

In light of Lovers' seventeenth day of pregnancy without a murmur of labor, Pretty found not worrying impossible. "It's your seventeenth day-"

Lover slammed the empty cup down. "I know. I can count. Seventeen days and I'm still fine. No pain, no bleeding, no discomfort, no birth duct trying to burst through my hankie like a darning needle. Okay?"

Pretty reached out and touched his scruffy chin. Lover relented at the affectionate gesture. "Look," he said, calm again, "it's unusual. But a knocked up fifty-one year old who needs a shave is unusual anyway."

Pretty closed in, brushing his lips across Lovers. "I know." He placed the cup in the sink. "I've got shift today." Chocolate had already left for his duties an hour previous.

Lover nodded. "And I, as usual, will be here all day with nothing to do."

Pretty frowned. "Hey. Laurents' brought in televisions at least. No programs. no soaps, but there's VCR's, DVD players, a whole library of stuff to watch or, if you're extra adventurous, books to read. Locks'll be here all day to wait on you hand and foot." Pretty stole a look at Lovers pregnant abdomen. The bulge was larger than ever, up to four pounds of extra weight concentrated below his navel and above his groin.

Pretty felt the sudden urge for sex but Lovers' ass was presently out-of-bounds. Pretty yearned to touch Lovers' distended, lovely belly but for many days Lover had kept it to himself. This pregnancy, whether the unusual length or his own worry over it, had him acting oddly sensitive. Touchy about being touched.

Pretty left for his shift and Lover lay down again. He found he needed to do that every few hours. More and more his body craved not just rest but deep, body re-charging sleep. Before he drifted off, he heard the door open and Locks' footsteps in the other room.

"Hey."

Locks looked up to see Lover standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

"Hey." Locks said and, as was the habit of each of Lovers' mates, stared at Lovers' distended abdomen for a moment. "Everything all right?" He asked in his Australian sing-song accent.

Lover stared back, his expression unreadable, until Locks started to walk farther into the room, right over to him, a flash of fear in his eyes. "Lover?" Locks approached him. Came right up to him, putting his hands on Lovers upper arms, cupping his biceps with his palms and curling his fingers around the triceps. "What's going on?" Locks was worried now at Lovers' odd silence.

Lover stared up into Locks eyes for a moment.

Locks stared back. It was clear to him that Lover was thinking something over.

Finally Lover said, "I want to show you something."

Locks, still worried, watched Lover struggle to his feet. He had the strangest look on his face, like he was about to deliver some very heavy news. Locks was on the verge of freaking. "You're not all right, are you? What the hell is wrong?"

Lover set his cane to rest against the mattress. He nimbly popped the snap at the top of his jeans and lowered the zipper. The waist of his jeans now habitually rested just under his growing belly. It was the only way he could get them closed.

Locks smirked a little. "Are you trying to seduce me? Trust me, you don't have to try but, I mean, you're pregnant." He looked down at Lovers' unusually distended abdomen. "_Very _pregnant." Lovers' baby belly wouldn't hold a candle to any nine months of pregnant woman he had ever seen, but if it was a ball inside Lovers' tummy, he could probably dribble it.

Lover ignored his comments and lowered his jeans down, and his underwear just until Locks could see the soft feathering of light brown hair beginning above his groin.

Lover took one of Locks hands and placed the palm against the lower part of his abdomen.

For a moment Locks was struck that maybe Lover was indulging in a very tender and emotional, and completely out-of-character, gesture. Until Locks felt something move under his fingers. A tiny tap, a quick jab against the middle of his index finger. An instant of motion from somewhere inside Lovers womb. Then it was gone.

Locks jerked his hand away, the blood draining from his face and his mouth dropping open. "That, oh my god, that was a...a _kick_." He stared down at Lovers belly like it was suddenly a vessel he didn't recognize. "A kick?! That's _impossible._ It's...not . . ." Locks stared at Lover. "How long has this been happening?"

Lover pulled his underwear and jeans back up, zipping up but not buttoning them closed. "A couple of days."

Locks felt a stupid, daddy-inspired, got-my-sweetie-pregnant lop-sided grin spread from ear to ear. "Well, my god, we, we have to tell them. I've got to find Chocolate and Pretty. We have to tell-"

"_NO one! _We tell no one."

Locks stopped in mid-sentence. "Wha-? Why? This is fantastic. This is a miracle. Laurent -"

Lovers' face darkened and his voice held a no-nonsense warning. "Laurent will take it away and raise it in a lab."

Locks stopped for a moment, finally seeing why Lovers face was so solemn and his manner so secretive. Yes. Even if it was a miracle, Laurent would need to know why it occurred. There would be studies, tests, the impossible baby growing inside Lover would be monitored in a very controlled and sterile environment, never knowing who his, or her, parents were.

As though reading his thoughts, Lover said, "It's no miracle. It'sf adaption, mutation, evolution - whatever you want to call it. Nature abhors a vacuum and this is its next step to fill the order."

Locks suddenly realized something, "What about the other embryos? Is it just one baby? Are there more? How big do you think it is?-"

"Shut up!" Lover said fiercely, then looked away to the wall. He turned and sat on the edge of the bed, slowly easing himself down, not jostling the life inside him. "In answer: I don't know, maybe, and if there is more, I have no idea how many. As for size - just under a pound." Lover looked up at him and Locks could see the naked fear in his eyes. "I don't have any evidence for that, that's just how large it . . .feels."

Locks sat beside him. "I can't believe it." He joined Lover in staring at nothing until he could gather coherent thought. "Stupid question but what now? I mean, sooner or later Laurent's going to find out about the - our baby. Or babies, and when he does-"

"He's not going to find out." Lover didn't wait for Locks to offer a counter-point. "He won't find out because I'm leaving before it's born."

Locks felt his heart sink. "Leave? You mean go back to the Rough? That's suicide. And infanticide - where would you _go? _And when, by the way, were you planning on this little trip? You could go into labor in the next hour."

Lover shook his head. "Again, call it a feeling, instinct, whatever, but it's not ready to come out yet."

Locks' heart was racing and his stomach churning up breakfast. A baby. His child. Not a collection of faceless cells but two eyes, a nose, ears, a mouth. Ten little fingers and toes . . .

_Maybe _his child. It could easily be Chocolates' or Prettys'. If there was only the one. There could be more. Laurent would take them all. His old Catholic soul swore in a very non-traditional manner, "Oh _Christ."_

XXX

Locks fretted the entire day, wandering around the living area in circles, in turns lying beside Lover as he rested and pacing back and forth beside the bed. Twice he considered leaving to find Pretty and Chocolate and spill the whole thing.

At first he had felt proud that Lover had chose him to break the news to first. Then concluded Lover probably did it simply because he knew he would need help to get away.

"But why not tell Pretty? Or Chocolate?"

Lover cracked an eye and rotated it just enough to look up at Locks who was standing by the bed glaring down on him, hands on hips. A younger, blonde version of a highly annoyed Pretty.

Sleep over, Lover rolled onto his back and sat up. "Because I heard you guys talking. Two weeks ago they were ready to call in Laurent or a coat hook." Lover swung his legs to the floor and did a visual search for the jeans he had again removed, this time tossing them aside. Now that his belly made doing them up difficult, it was just more comfortable to go around in boxers. "No one's taking this baby. Not even them."

"Then why tell me? How do you know I won't call Laurent? I might."

"No you won't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because you don't like him any more than I do. Or this place."

"How do you know?"

Lover pushed himself off the bed with the help of his cane. He hobbled to the kitchen sink, Locks following.

Running water into a glass, Lover drank and talked in between gulps. "You're always rude to him." He handed the glass to Locks. "A devotee is always respectful. You're here for no reason but yourself."

"True enough." It was a waste of energy to deny it.

Lover added, "And I'm only here because I was given no choice."

Locks understood, respected, Lovers feelings. Under current government policy, he was hardly more than a slave. A baby machine. "But how could you survive out there? Where would you go?"

"I don't know." Lover walked toward the table, a trip of ten feet but he grimaced when half way there his leg cramped and twitched.

"Oh, yeah I bet you could run _miles_ in that condition." Locks observed with no little sarcasm.

"I haven't thought that far ahead, Goldy Locks. I'll figure that out when I come to it."

"Lover-"

"-I'm keeping this baby! She is not going to be raised in a lab surrounded by people who's sole interest is not just learning how she ticks but why she ticks at all."

"You'd rather _he_ die out there in the Rough with you?"

Lover stared up at him miserably. "You think living like a rat in a cage isn't a death? Trust me, it is. Just a very slow one."

Locks sat down opposite him, the table between them. "Lover. Tell Pretty. Tell Chocolate. They're not going to let Laurent walk in and take the baby. Not _this_ baby. Because this _IS_ a baby, not just a sac of embryos. This is their baby - _our_ baby. _All _of ours. One kick from him and you think they won't feel exactly like I did?"

Locks walked around the table to crouch down in front of Lover. He reached out a hand to touch Lovers swelled abdomen and, this time, Lover did not stop it.

Locks placed his fingers gently on Lovers' belly, waiting for the sign. Waiting to feel that kick of life again. His child. He knew it was stupid sentiment, something Lover had no patience for, but he also knew he was right. "Chocolate and Pretty will want this baby as much as you and me. No way would they let anything happen to him. If we have to, we'll all leave."

Lover looked down at Locks, his newest and sweetest mate and felt a stupid hormonal ache of startling affection for the younger man. He had never hated Chase. Not ever.

Leaning over Lover kissed him once on the mouth, then drew back and said, "Babies."

Locks' world suddenly turned every shade of white and red. Fluctuations in blood pressure - that's why, his physicians mind automatically supplying him with the diagnosis. Stress. Strain. Shock. All those medical things with complicated latin-root names he couldn't remember right now. "What did y-you say?"

"I said bab_**ies**_." Lover looked down at his stomach. "There's two."

XXX

Part XVI ASAP


	16. Chapter 16

Gone With the World

---------------------------

Part XVI

Pairing: House/Wilson/Multiples.

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. _**This chapter contains sexual situations -- SLASH. If you don't like -- don't read.**_

Summary: **Alternate Universe**. Blue eyed males become a sought-after commodity in an all male society. Language. Rape. Sexual situations. _**Implausible **__**medical situations**_. SLASH.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House to my hearts desire. No money, just fun.

NOTE: If you want to enjoy this, _**suspend your disbelief**_.

NOTE #2: _**GWTW was inspired in part by a story called "There's No Such Thing in the World (as an Undo Button)" by Zulu. Awesome story - sexy hot! **_

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Lover answered Locks' stunned and slightly perturbed look. "I lied because I didn't know how you were going to react to the news of just one."

"Two babies?" Locks' immediate instinct was to place two hands on Lovers' belly and move them over it's surface. Warm skin, round flesh, something alive inside . . . it felt so strange and so good all at the same time. "Twins?"

Lover brushed the other mans' hands away. "You don't have to check. There's two. I'm right."

"How do you know?" His mouth lagged behind rapid fire thoughts.

"It," Lover motioned to his belly as a whole so Locks would understand he was referring to his womb itself and not the babies inside it, "feels fuller, solid, and there's a lot of movement and shifting, like there's two things fighting for space." He was certain. "It's two."

Locks remained where he was, crouched down before his mate, letting his palms rest lightly on Lovers thighs. "We have to tell them. I don't know if I can get you out on my own. Even with the three of us, how do we get to where ever we want to go once we're out? We need Pretty. We need Chocolate."

"We need a plan. And what can they do that you can't do?"

"Well, Chocolate can hot-wire a car for starters." He shrugged lightly. "Don't you want them?" Locks figured he was getting too close to Lovers' personal mind space but, "Don't you love them too?"

Lover did his best not be feel annoyed. Locks didn't give it up, so he must have succeeded. "Of course I do." Even though he knew that, other than in the will-defying demon-like possession of sexual hunger, he had trouble showing it. "I'm pregnant with their kids aren't I? That should be proof enough."

Locks' answer cut through much of Lovers rusting, worn out defenses. "You don't have to _prove_ anything." He stood up. "Look, I don't want to wait until they get home-"

"-You go and collect them now and it might raise an alarm to someone that something's going on."

Locks sighed, rubbing the back of his head and pacing in tiny circles, trying to think. "I don't understand why Laurent hasn't sent his gorillas to claim you already. That doesn't make sense."

"It does now that Whorley's my attending. He knows." Lover corrected himself. "At least I think he _suspects_ this. That's why he hasn't alerted Laurent. Whorley's keeping him in the dark."

"Why?"

"The program is working and the Program is _Laurents'_ baby. Right now he's swamped with "recruits". Trust me, he's too busy to have the time to notice. Whorley may work for the Program but he isn't invested in it."

Locks was grateful for that. One person on Lovers' side didn't exactly tip the scales, but it jiggled them a little. "Think he can be trusted to keep you under wraps?"

Lover shrugged. "I don't know. But for a way to get outta' this place, I think he's our best shot."

"That's not going to be easy. What with the cameras -"

"-the cameras are just show." At Locks surprise, "Power conservation, another of Laurents' babies. I don't think this place is the fortress it appears to be." He didn't voice his personal hope. It probably was a fortress. Non-working cameras not-with-standing, Laurent did not want to lose his valuable BMs. As long as BMs existed in captivity, Laurent had his place in the world.

Locks checked the time. "It's almost time for lunch break. I going go find Chocolate and Pretty and tell them. The sooner we let them know what's going on, maybe we can come up with a half decent idea by the end of the day." He hoped.

Lover nodded. "Avoid Laurent whatever you do."

Locks nodded, kissed him quickly on the lips and slipped out the door.

XXX

When he returned, Pretty and Chocolate were with him.

At feeling the tiny kick from in Lovers' womb - a babies' _foot_ - Chocolates' first thought was to jump up and whoop at the top of his lungs, but a dark scowl from Lover convinced him to abandon such an uncharacteristic urge. He settled for a idiotic smile and planting an impulsive smooch on Lovers' mouth. Chocolate, though, remained standing by Lovers' chair, hovering protectively. "Any discomfort?" If he thought Lover would tolerate it, he'd have his ear against his belly, listening for the flutter of tiny heartbeats.

Lover, a little put out by the jumbo sized emotions dripping all around him, had half a mind to start swinging his cane and thumping skulls.

Pretty tried to be glad for the news of not just a baby but two. He was beside himself with the thought of being a daddy but that happy yet terrifying thought kept getting crowded out by the just terrifying danger the babies were in. Specifically the danger of losing them.

And losing Lover too. He didn't know which would be worse. Pretty felt glued in place. Suspended in indecision. That he might be a daddy had him reeling. Back when all he was expecting, or ever could expect, was a egg-like sac full of nameless, unrecognizable embryos, being a daddy was a cake walk. Bang Lover with all his might, knock him up and roll in that good hearted feeling and pride of penis as Lovers' belly began to swell.

Now Lover was carrying two real live, growing babies and he could be daddy to both of them. There was two chances in three that at least one baby was specifically and only his. But _step-dad_ was equally un-nerving. Terrifying just didn't cover it.

On top of that, Lover kept insisting they leave the facility and the worst part was he was right. Staying meant they'd be daddies only in name, not in action. Their children would be taken away.

Chocolates' reasonable, carefully controlled demeanor smashed through all of Prettys' uncertainty and nailed the crux of their combined worry. "Lovers going to have these babies in the next day - two days at most. I've been through almost every area in this place and there's no way out of it without going through the central security corridor. And that means doors and locks and guards and weapons."

Locks asked Lover, "I heard about your foray into the Inc' Ward. How'd you get passed the guards?"

"I limped right up to them and pretended I was delirious with labor pains. They so nicely tried to help. Two jabs - two very sleepy guards."

Chocolate was surprised by the simplicity of the maneuver. And Lovers' gutsiness. Hormones. Instinct. Probably a stew of both. "That won't work here."

Lover stood, grimacing. "I need to sleep for a while."

Pretty was immediately on alert. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

Pretty followed him into the bedroom and, despite Lovers' protests that he still knew how, helped Lover undress. He sat on the bed with him for a few minutes while Lover climbed under the sheets and tried to get comfortable. For years Lover had taken to sleeping on his back most of the time to ease the pressure his leg, but his pregnant state demanded he lay on his side to ease the weight off his complaining bladder. Lover nestled his head in a thick pillow. He sighed wearily. "You don't have to babysit me."

Pretty leaned over, kissing his cheek. "Can't help it. There be babies here."

"I'm tired."

Pretty could practically feel it from two feet away. Lover wasn't so much sleepy as worn to the bare bone of endurance. They all were. And this was the special ward where everything was supposed to be easier. Healthier. "You guys are going to get me out of here, right?" Lover opened his eyes briefly_. "Right?"_

Without feeling particularly confident about it, Pretty nodded. What choice did they have?

Lover was adamant. "'Cause if Laurent gets his hands on these, I'll die before they'll take any more out of me. Or stick any_one_ else in me."

Pretty understood. Lover would ensure he was too dead for that to happen. Pretty knew he wouldn't survive Lover being dead.

It was time to leave.

-

-

-

In the other room Locks asked, "Whorley hasn't be by to check on Lover in the last few days has he?" It wasn't a question designed to glean information. It was a signal of something amiss. Locks looked around the room at his fellow daddies. "Well, that's kind of weird, isn't it? He knows Lover's overdue. By a long shot."

Chocolate. "He hasn't called Lover down for an examination?" He asked Pretty.

Pretty, rejoining the conversation, shook his head. "No. And Laurent doesn't allow any ultra-sounds. Too risky with so many unknowns." Pretty agreed. Whorleys' attentiveness, or lack there-of, seemed out-of-character.

Any more discussion was cut short by a soft moan from the next room. All three piled through the door to see Lover lying on his back, his fists curling up the sheets in twin death grips, his face twisted in pain.

Chocolate said, "We just ran out of time. Call Whorley."

Locks protested. "He'll have to call Laurent won't he? We could lose the babies."

Pretty went to make the call. "Lovers' in labor. If anything goes wrong, we could lose them _and_ him." Pretty hated to do it but, "I'll use his direct calling code. Laurent won't find out until he needs to." In the meantime maybe they could come up with an escape plan. Or a really convincing argument for Laurent. Or will themselves out of Oz with four pairs of ruby slippers, extra large.

Whorley arrived ten minutes later, in paper coveralls and gloves. "How long has he been in labor?"

Chocolate hoped they weren't making the biggest mistake of their life. "It just started."

Pretty said, "We need to get out of here, Doctor. Away from the facility." Any possibility of subterfuge was pretty well off the table.

Whorley appeared unsurprised by his request. He made an examination of Lover whose' pains had settled down to a dull ache. Whorley returned to the sitting area, closing the door behind him.

"He's asleep. False alarm, gentlemen, he's not in labor. But his due hour is close. A day away perhaps. Two at most." He lay his glasses on the table, rubbing the pinched flesh on the bridge his nose and stripped off his gloves. "May we chat for a few moments?" He asked the three men, not waiting for any replies. "The babies are kicking well. Lots of movement." He began.

Pretty was startled that Whorley knew that particular detail, but only for a second. "_They_ are, yes."

Whorley, clearly already in the know about the nature of Lovers' pregnancy, did not look surprised by the plural. He was grave and nodded, as though what was happening in next room had given weight to an idea already fully formed in his head. "Twins, yes. Extraordinary."

Pretty asked. "You knew?"

"I suspected. Natural selection and all. It appears the Universe is not done with Lover or BMs in general."

Locks guessed, "There are others aren't there? Others who are late like him?"

Whorley nodded. "Yes and as you suspect, not just late. Others who are carrying more than embryos. Two that I know of from the Special Twenty Project alone. There may be more. If so, Laurent has not disclosed it to me. But he did have three of my BMs removed to what he calls "Protective Isolation" a week ago. They were all fifteen days plus. At first I thought the lateness was the improved living conditions, the men are happier, healthier . . ."

Pretty asked because they were all anxious to know. "That's not what's doing this, is it? If Laurents suspects or already knows, why hasn't he taken Lover?"

Whorley raised his eyebrows as though the answer was obvious. "Because I've kept Lovers' current pregnancy off the books. Laurent doesn't know and he isn't asking questions." Whorley knew the risk he was taking and lowered his voice. "I told Laurent that I prescribed a months rest for Lover. I recorded in Records that he was weakened by his previous miscarriages and another pregnancy so soon would be too risky." Whorley spread his hands. "I lied."

Locks was grateful to the man but had to know. "Why are you helping us?"

Whorley sighed. "I'm working here for one reason only: to make the BMs lives a little more bearable while the state confiscates their bodies for "manufacture". I wanted to look after their health as best I could. Although no sane man would argue against the rebuilding of the human race, I don't agree with the way that is coming about. I don't agree with this facility. But _this_ is where I can be of the most use. The best use."

Chocolate asked "How do we get out of here?"

"I don't know. Even if you manage it, you won't get ten miles and you sure as hell won't get far with a pregnant BM."

Chocolate paced a little. "If we stay here, Laurent will discover that Lover is pregnant with real, live babies. He'll be tucked away in a lab for the rest of his life and we might never see him again."

"And we'll never see the kids." Locks added.

Whorley nodded. That is how it would happen. _Will_ happen if they remained. He scratched behind one ear. "I, uh, I _may_ have a solution. At least a destination. But you don't have much time."

"Why?" Pretty asked.

"Lover is close to delivery hour. I could go check my records but-"

"-Eighteen plus nine." Locks said.

"I delivered a baby yesterday from Laurents isolated BMs. He came at twenty-one days and I believe conception was around the same time as yours. Lover has already had one false labor. He may have another. He's stable again but you have about two days before Lover gives birth for real."

"-How are those babies? The ones you delivered?" Pretty asked quickly. "Are they it all right? Healthy?" He licked his lips. "F-fully formed?"

Whorley was center stage. "The babies are perfectly healthy. Small. One and a half to two pounds tops. Now, Lover's carrying twins so in all likelihood his will be smaller than that. But despite their size, their lungs are good - fully developed and strong. O2s are within range and their hearts are functioning perfectly. The low birth weight appears to be no factor in the babies' over-all well being."

Whorley watched as Locks poked his head in the bedroom door. No moans escaped now. Lover was sleeping.

"Any girls?" Locks closed the door again he asked Whorley. "Among the other babies I mean?"

"N-no. So far all boys. All of them." Whorley let them think as they pleased on the matter but said reassuringly, "The children are born very small but not weak - these are not pre-mature babies. Nature appears to be very much at the helm on this one." Whorley said. "That's my hypothesis anyway. As to the other embryos, my belief is that they are simply crowded out as to nutrients and oxygen. The stronger embryos grow, the others starve and diminish. From a litter of dozens of embryos, the strongest fight for life and eventually win. The rest die, probably while still at the embryonic stage."

Chocolate said. "Survival of the fittest. Nature isn't an idiot."

Pretty asked, "Can we talk about getting out of here?" He advised his mates. And to Whorley, "You said you had a solution."

Whorley held up a hand of warning. "Understand, as much as I disagree with how things are run here and the antiquated inequalities, it is still the safest place for a child. Perhaps not the best social environment but you know - don't you? - how much _harder_ it will be on the outside? That hasn't changed. Even with a hand up, it'll be a struggle just to survive, find food, a place to live. . ."

Around the room, Pretty saw not a flicker of indecision now. His had settled into the need of necessity. To survive, they had to be strong. Again the world was giving them no choice.

Chocolate took the floor. "So how do we get out?"

"I said I had a destination. A pit-stop once you're out. I didn't say I could get you there." Whorley answered. "But I can get you a few supplies."

Whorley saw himself out and returned with rations for four for two days and several boxes of pouches.

"Baby formula." Whorley explained. "Enough for two for three days. Any more and Supply's likely to start asking questions." He dug in the pocket of his white jacket and withdrew a slip of paper. "You'll need to find transportation." He handed Chocolate the paper. "Here's where you'll find it."

Chocolate read what was written on the paper. "Directions to a storage facility at the edge of town." Chocolate stared at Whorley. "Vehicles." Chocolate guessed. "And gas?"

"Yes. The government would not deprive itself as it would it citizens. Take two vehicles and extra gas. The place is poorly guarded. Over-confidence is something no human run institution, including the government, is ever short of. Even I'm not supposed to know about it." Whorley turned to leave. "I have rounds starting in ten minutes. I'm sorry but that's all I can do. You'll have to get there on your own."

Whorley paused at the door. "By the way, the bi-monthly machinery maintenance in Inc' Ward is scheduled for tonight. Heavy security but lots of people in there. Lots of faces." He looked directly at Chocolate, keeping his expression deliberately neutral and his voice dead-pan. "It's easy to get missed in a crowd."

-

-

-

"That's what Whorley said?" Lover asked.

Pretty repeated it for him and added. "We're trying to figure out what he meant. Some sort of code, a hint - how to get out of here maybe." He sat beside Lover on the bed. Lover was sitting up, drinking the last swallow of the "milk" concoction Whorley had formulated for pregnant BMs. Pretty took the empty cup. "I don't suppose there might be a secret tunnel?"

Lover shook his head. "Missed in a crowd. Didn't you see The Bourne Identity One, two and Three?"

"And that has something to do with this because . . .?"

Instead of elaborating, Lover said, "I need to talk to Locks."

"Why?"

Impatiently, "Do I need permission?"

Pretty ignored Lovers' irritation and went to tell Locks he was being summoned.

"Close the door." Lover explained when Locks entered.

Locks closed it and settled himself on the bed, one leg folded, one on the floor. "What's going on?"

Lover nodded, not looking at him right away. "You should know. Doctors do it all the time."

A cryptic message. "Doctors do what all the time?"

"Put people out of their misery when there's no hope or when the only thing ahead is suffering or helpless decline."

Locks remembered such conversations back in a time when they were Chase and House in a hospital. "Yeah. You're talking about . . . lethal injections." Locks searched Lovers' face, his heart pounded. "Are you asking me to get you- ?"

"-No. I'm asking you to save every BM in here. A gilded cage is still a cage. And this one isn't even gilded."

Locks, looking pale, said, "There's only one way all those BMs would be willing to leave and that's-" He leaned in and whispered. "-hang on. Are you - Do you want me to . . .remove the . . .things that are tying them here?"

Lover didn't say yes or no but his expression told Locks what he needed to know just the same. "I don't know if I can do that."

"Two living babies inside me says you can."

"I won't do it without the others knowing. There's no way-"

"-Chocolate might conceivably understand this, but Pretty'll fight it. He's got a Superman complex. He thinks if we just polish out shields and hope really hard, everything will work out." Lover smiled a little ironically. "That's probably the biggest reason I love the idiot. Even an apocalypse can't dull that optimism. Explains why he loves me."

Locks thought about it for a few seconds, staring directly into Lovers' eyes, trying to determine whether Lover was half serious or was already the whole way to absolute. "This isn't the life of an old, terminally suffering patient. We're talking about thousands of potential lives here."

Lover looked away. "To save hundreds who have already grown way beyond potential." Lover answered.

Locks watched Lovers' eyes, so chock full of emotion and pain. Too many years of unhappiness in those eyes. Now as disconcerting as any future of theirs was. If their babies were born, if they lived long enough to be raised, even by strangers, if they even lived at all, an uncertain future awaited them, here as anywhere. What most likely awaited them was struggle, if not for food and shelter, then identity. A life somewhere like this made up of order and rules, schedules and decisions about every aspect of their lives_, each_ aspect already determined and recorded.

It's what all their lives had become. At first, it had felt like a miracle, this new breeding program. Be a part of saving the world. Breed a new humanity. Sacrifices made to be sure, but aren't there always?

All of their lives could be summed up in the endurance of emotional agony he saw in Lovers tired eyes. This was no life, not for Lover. And if not for Lover, then because of his love for him, not for himself. In the balance of go or stay, Locks didn't have to weigh long. That was enough.

Not for their children nestled in his belly. Lover was imprisoned in someone elses' idea of the future, a future that required the sacrifice of his happiness, freedom and self will. The life under which Lover and his kind were forced to exist would be their childrens' too, potential or otherwise. Already there were dozens of their potential children growing and waiting to be born. How many would be blue eyed? How many would enter the ranks of the enslaved?

Hundreds of potential lives would eventually become thousands. If they did nothing, some of those children would be theirs who would grow into people none of them would never know. "We won't even know what they look like." Locks said, propping up unspoken thought.

Lover knew he had made his point and saw also that Locks had accepted it, so from beneath the covers, Lover handed him a small oblong box. Something inside rattled.

Locks opened the box and looked inside. "This is it? This is the solution?"

Lover nodded. "You're a doctor. As much as we'd like to, we can't save everyone. Whorley slipped that to me. Guess he's had enough too."

Locks left the bedroom and headed to the door leading to the hallway.

"What's up?" Chocolate asked. Locks was about to leave without so much as a _Hey._

Locks, his stomach churning fire and dread, stopped but didn't turn around. "Get Lover ready to move. I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?" Pretty asked. "We've got to figure out -"

Locks answered by closing the apartment door.

Chocolate looked at Pretty. "What was all that about?"

Pretty, worried hands on hips, shrugged one shoulder. "He looked scared."

Chocolate sighed. "I'll go talk to him."

"What should I do?"

Chocolate could think of nothing more than, "Get Lover ready I guess, whatever that means." He closed the door behind him.

Pretty was left alone in the apartment. "Ready for precisely what?"

-

-

-

"Wait up." Chocolate quickly caught up to Locks.

Locks stopped, fiddling with something in his hand, staring at it.

"What's that?"

Locks didn't look up for a second. He was deciding whether or not to share. Then handed the object to Chocolate. "Our ticket out."

Chocolate opened the tiny box and stared at the label on the syringe. "Who are you planning on murdering?"

Locks' face went ashen. "Whorley slipped it to Lover when he was examining him."

Chocolate stared at the lethal instrument delicately cradled in his own fingers.

Locks said. "I think we can guess what Whorley meant now when he talked about the maintenance schedule for tonight."

Chocolate put it togther in a second and lowered his voice. "Kill the sacs?" He stared at Locks anguished eyes. "Is he joking?"

Locks gestured to the syringe. "Doesn't look that way, does it? But Laurent can't have his program without the sacs. Contaminate the sacs, and therefor the wells, the program is effectively over, at least for a while. No sacs, no program."

Chocolate understood clearly, what would occur. A whole-scale failure of the sacs in Inc' ward would provoke an emergency shut down of power. There would be a riot but only if the BMs thought it was a mass execution perpetrated by Laurent and his project. The ensuing chaos as the BMs and their donors tried to save the only thing they had any claim over would likely distract the facilities internal security, both human and electronic, enough for them to slip away.

"We'd have to time it right. Get out before anyone really knows what's happening." Chocolate said.

"Unless we can't. Unless Whorley's wrong."

"If he thought he was, I doubt he would have given Lover this."

"You want me to do it?" Locks asked.

Chocolate was curious. "Where were you going with it anyway?"

Locks flushed. "No where. I, I mean, . .I was . . .going to the bathroom." Then added, "To throw up."

Chocolate felt a little queasy himself. "Lover just handed this to you? No hesitation."

"I wouldn't say that. He looked pretty bad. I think he was about to cry and you know how he hates that, so I left."

They exchanged tiny smiles of understanding for their love for an emotionally reserved, frustrating pregger'.

"I'll do it." Chocolate said.

Locks moved to take it back. "I've done this before."

"You haven't done _this_ before." He stared kindly at the younger of his two other loves. "Besides, my face won't be questioned as much. The staff have seen me around here longer, working on different wards. It's unlikely I'll be questioned."

Locks shoved his hands in his pocket, giving the burden up to Chocolate. "What do you want me to do?"

"Can you lie really well?"

"I'll manage."

"Then we need to spread a lie, a convincing lie, to the other BMs and their men. Tell them Laurent needs to "cleanse" the incubation wells. Tell them anything that'll get them down there. Once they see the place crawling with workers, they'll probably believe it."

"I guess I could use Whorleys' computer. He gave us a syringe full of cyanide, I imagine he'll let me send an email without too much argument." His next question he said so quietly, Chocolate had a hard time hearing it. "How will you . .spread it? Make s-sure it gets to all of them?"

"The food. I'll inject it into the food line. It's connected to all of them. Even with maintenance, they can't afford to shut down the nutrient or oxygen feeds." Chocolate looked at his watch. They had about seven hours, if Whorley was correct. "We'll work out a time once the Inc' Ward is open. I'll wear my ward duty coat and name-tag." Chocolate. "I feel like . . .I don't know, a vet faced with three hundred unclaimed kittens."

"Just think of the babies inside Lover." He said. "And I don't know about you, but leaving behind living embryos to be raised by people who think slavery is okay is no longer anything I want to be a part of."

Chocolate nodded. Locks was right. Thinking about it like that helped. There were several pregnant BMs within their breeding project of the special twenty and by the size of their bellies, they were carrying real growing babies. Soon there would be more.

With freedom beneath their feet, there would be hundreds, then thousands.

Some are sacrificed so others gain. It was the way of the new world. And the old.

"For god's sake, don't tell Pretty what we're doing until it's already too late."

Locks gestured to the box. "Keep that hidden and be careful not to prick yourself."

Chocolate took a deep, unsettled breath. "This is going to be rough."

XXX

Locks didn't have to vomit after all and returned to their quarters.

Lover was up and dressed.

"We should take anything we'll need for the trip." He glanced around the essentially bare living space. "Whatever we have. Clothes I guess. Blankets and whatever food's in those cupboards." He looked at Pretty. "Can you handle that?"

"Sure." Pretty watched Lover ease himself into a straight backed kitchen chair. He was perspiring. To Locks, "Where are you going?"

"I've got to take care of something."

"What?"

"I've got to warn the other BMs that this place is going to get a little . . .nuts. We'll know when it happens. When it does, we get out."

Pretty thought the plan a little lame. "How does stirring up a riot get us out exactly?"

Locks sighed. "Chocolate said he's got that covered."

Pretty watched Locks leave and walked to Lover, his attention immediately on Lovers' pale face and rapid breathing. "Are you okay? Any more pain?"

Lover shook his head. "No pain. A little . . .heaviness."

Pretty hoped like hell Chocolate and Locks knew what they were doing. All he and Lover could do was wait.

XXX

Chocolate watched the people move in and out of the Incubation Ward. Whorley had been right. Lots of people, most dressed like himself. Guards too, but they weren't questioning anyone. People were signing in and out. That's all. Maintenance workers, doctors and what-not all passing in and out. It was done every month or so. This was routine. If Chocolate could judge by the boredom on the guards faces, mind-numbingly routine.

This was the highest security area in the place. But even vaults needed cleaning and repairs. "Incredible." Chocolate hesitated to assume it would be easy. But he made sure his name tag was straight, picked up his small white canvas satchel. It would pass well enough for an official senior physicians bag. All that was in it was three pairs of sterile gloves he'd grabbed from Copulation Ward, an assortment of long rubber tubes suitable for siphoning (let the guards make what they would of that. He had ready on his lips some doctor-speak bullshit should they question him), a short piece of sharp looking metal tube suitable for puncturing flesh, an assortment of sterile packaged alcohol sponges, a small vial of water he filled from their kitchen tap, and the syringe Whorley had given them with the fast-acting, deadly poison.

He hoped it looked enough like doctor stuff without looking like it was for people. The syringe he made sure to keep in plain sight, lying on top of the other stuff.

The easiest way to hide anything was in plain sight. The easiest way to pass for a legitimate person with permission to enter is to wear your name tag and walk in. What traitorous murderer would be expected to do that?

Chocolate walked casually up the hallway toward Inc'. He made to pass the guards but was stopped by the barrel of a long, lethal looking automatic weapon. "What's in the bag, Doc'?"

_They called me Doc'._ First hurdle passed. Chocolate feigned bored irritation, opened the bag and held it up for their inspection.

One peeked his nose in but made no move to examine further. "Your purpose here?"

Chocolate closed the bag. "Amniotic fluid samples and macroglobulinic testing. Laurent wants electrophoresis breakdown to look for protein count and degradation." He rolled his eyes. "Every well." He hoped his little speech and pretend annoyance with the task was bull-shitting enough. Unless they were willing to admit they were idiots, the guards likely wouldn't question it.

The second guard said, "Yeah, yeah. Sign the register."

Chocolate was relieved there was no electronic keypad, thumb-print stuff. That he couldn't bullshit his way through. The power being down to minimum (just enough to keep the sac wells humming) had to account for that one lucky break.

He walked among the wells, trying to keep his eyes averted from peering too closely. Any sentiment now might turn him away, cause him to back out.

Lover and his soon to be born babies were too important. He couldn't chicken out now. Chocolate walked like he had a purpose through the wells, finding himself in an areas somewhat isolated from the others and their potentially curious eyes. no one would see.

He stopped by a likely well, one among hundreds. No name.

A number and letter to record where it was located and which day the life inside it had dropped from some nameless BMs poor body. A well full of possible people who would now never become so. Chocolate withdrew the syringe of poison from his bag and located the wells' nutrient tube that was feeding its' tiny cargo and also interconnected with every other life-containing well on the ward.

He stuck the needle through the thick, nylon wrapped, synthetic rubber hose. It did not go in easily.

Chocolate took one steadying breath. "To all lives sacrificed so others may live," he whispered, pushing the plunger home. "I'm sorry."

XXX

Locks came for pretty and Lover, ushering them out into the hallway. Murmuring could be heard behind the closed doors to other quarters. The movement of peoples' feet shuffling here and there in places beyond their direct sight.

Locks lead the way and Pretty took up a position right behind Lover, who was moving slowly, not only because of this leg pain and the extra wooden appendage designed to ease it, but his swollen abdomen, heavy with children. To Pretty, with the four extra pounds concentrated below his navel, Lover never looked sexier.

But he was also sweating and his respirations were out of whack with his movement. He was breathing far too rapidly for merely walking. Lover in fact was slowing down. He stopped suddenly, leaning against the wall, hanging his head and gasping for air.

"Hey." Lover said to Locks who puled up. "Lover can't breath."

But Lover shook his head. "I can b-breath. But I think, . . ." He leaned his back against the coolness of the corridor and slid down onto his backside, his legs splayed out in front. "It's not . . my lungs, I'm in pain. I think, I think the babies are coming."

Pretty shook his head very reasonably. "No. Whorley said you had another day at least. This is probably just another false labor."

Lover snarled at him. "I know when the damn labor is _false._ This isn't. I feel movement, the babies are dropping slightly, mov . . .moving toward the . . .the birth can-_a-h-h-H_!" Lover ended the sentence with a scream of pain and no more words.

Pretty unbuttoned Lovers' snug jeans and pulled them off. Lover tried to help but he was weak and his fingers fumbled. Pretty brushed them away. "Let me do it." He pulled them all the way down and off.

Checking between Lovers' legs, even a layman would recognize the blood and fluid seeping through his underwear and spilling onto the white shiny floor. Pretty looked up at Locks who was standing over them both, his face carved with worry. "I think he's right."

Locks blurted "Oh god! Now?"

Pretty motioned for Locks to take Lovers' ankles. "Come on. We have to carry him. The birth could take hours. We have to meet Chocolate by the labs in ten minutes."

A sweaty eleven minutes later, they came upon Chocolate, his strained face turning to sobering relief at their arrival. He did not fail to immediately note that they were carrying Lover between them.

"What the hell happened?"

"He's in labor." Chase answered.

Chocolate stared, a glitch he had considered in passing but not prepared for. "We can't wait. This place is about to go nuts, we have to go." Chocolate gathered up their supply bag. "I'll carry this, you guys carry him. Just follow me."

They got three more corridors worth between them and the laboratories. Chocolate turned a corner and ran into to-

"Laurent." He said. The only good thing about seeing him was Laurent was alone.

Laurent stared at the scene of Lover and the bloody mess between his legs.

Chocolate wasn't about to chat. "Get out of the way, Laurent."

Laurent stared at the, to him, bizarre sight. "Where are you going with my BM? What the hell is this? This creature is in labor-"

"-He's not a creature, you arrogant ass!" Locks snarled.

Pretty and Locks had to lay Lover down and rest.

"What in Gods' name are you taking him?" Laurent demanded, the color rising in his face. He reflexively moved to stand between Lover and chocolate but Chocolate warned him away with a low, deadly tone.

"Don't move." Chocolate said.

Laurent noticed Chocolate's hand was not empty. Chocolate noticed his notice. He held it up so Laurent could see plainly. "Know what this is?" Chocolate asked, answering for him without a beat. "Potassium Cyanide. Because of this, your little kingdom is about to fall. But there's just enough left in this plunger to make this an extra bad day for you."

Laurents' face went white. "You're no murderer."

Chocolate stepped closer. "Are you sure? You willing to test that theory?"

Laurent backed off. His head snapped up when the clamor of a emergency claxon sounded, filling the corridor with drum pounding waves. Laurent looked puzzled then stared at Chocolate, shocked and horrified. "Do you know what you've done?!" He yelled above the din. "You've murdered humanity. You've _killed _our future."

Chocolate shook his head. "Just yours." He gestured to the corridor ahead of them. "Now move."

Laurent did as he was told. Chocolate was stunned that he had not thought of this earlier. He had been counting on a total systems failure or maybe blind luck to make it through the security entrance, then to outside and freedom. Threatening Laurent with death had not occurred to him. He decided to be thankful for that, that he still had good things living inside his conscience.

Laurent commented as he entered his security code. Before he could finish, Chocolate wrenched on the glass doors and they moved easily aside. "Guess we didn't need you after all." He said to Laurent. The elevator foyer was before them, empty and waiting. No power meant the old fashioned stairwell would have to do.

"Do you realize it's only the middle of March? There's snow on the ground." Laurent said, mocking them. "You'll freeze before you get a mile."

"Why do you care Laurent?" Chocolate motioned for Pretty and Locks to enter the stairwell ahead of him.

Laurent called after them. "Lover! Those babies will die out there! I'm telling you. You leave now, that's it! - you won't get back in."

Lover spoke from between his pains. "Let's get out of here before this asshole makes me deaf!"

Laurent wouldn't give up his tirade. "you think those boys will do better in the Rough than with me? Than where they can get proper food and warmth?" Laurent raged. "You're no father if you think _that_."

Lover poked Pretty in the side. "Stop. Put me down." He barked at Pretty. Locks and he complied.

Lover stared at Laurent with unbridled hatred. "My _boys_??" Lovers' eyes were twin blue balls of enlightenment. "None of the other BMs had girls did they?"

Laurent went silent, the question throwing him momentarily. "Of course they did!"

Lover stared at Laurent until the doctor looked away.

Lover said, "You're lying."

This time Laurent didn't protest.

"You're not expecting any females." Lover announced. "There are none. There never was."

Pretty shook his head, puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

Lover struggled to his feet, his broken sac fluid still leaking out from between his legs. "I'm about to give birth to two _sons_. Out of three other BMs in this section, two others had twins. The numbers say at least one should have been female but Whorley said there wasn't even one. I think there will never be girls born and Laurent knows that."

"Lover, odds are-" Pretty started,

"That we'll start seeing more female babies? Why?" Lover asked Pretty while his eyes never left Laurents' sweating face.

"Because there are female and male embryos - "

"You know that for sure?" Lover countered. "You lifted up their skirts and checked? Because there are no tests to determine sex at the embryonic stage. Sex, when sex counts, is only apparent at eight weeks when it was still women wearing the panty-liners. In my case, it would have been clear I'm guessing about the fourteenth day. _That's_ why no Ultrasounds. Right?" He asked Laurent.

"_Right?" _He repeated when the facilitator remained silent. "No pictures allowed at all. No records. No visits - no birth dad ever seeing his children. We are not to know that we are giving birth to only males." Lover threw a hand in the hated mans' direction, encouraging his mates to really see and listen. "Laurent wasn't thinking about safety, he was thinking about _secrecy_. There are no female embryos, therefore no female babies. There never will be. _Ever again_."

Locks screwed up his eyes, his curiosity at the mostly one-sided conversation blinking over to comprehension. "I'm an idiot. Lover's right. There'll never be females."

"Why?" Pretty asked again, wishing someone would bring him into the fold.

Locks said, "Because there doesn't _have _to be."

Pretty felt like a fool. He was evidently missing a part of the puzzle. "I'm not sure I follow."

"Evolutionary biology." Locks explained. "Nature mutated BMs, but BMs are still men and Nature hasn't screwed with _that_ part. A man is all Lover can ever be so a man is all he can ever give birth to. No more X chromosomes exist in the human race. We're the ones making babies now and they're all males. Nature has decided to go with that. As long as we can reproduce, evolution doesn't _need_ females." Locks looked down at pregnant Lover, then to the others. "It's like the dinosaurs. Disaster cleaned them out and Nature decided it wasn't necessary to replace them. Now it's women who are extinct. Nature's going with franks and beans. _We're_ all humanity is now."

"But why hide it?" Pretty asked. "Why this elaborate place?"

Locks said, "To promote multi-births I assume. To make sure that humanity goes where the powers that be want it to go."

Laurent defended his work. "To keep order!" He snapped. "To make sure that war and factions don't enter into it and destroy what's left. One government. One law. One purpose."

Lover laughed. "Didja' stencil that on some buttons and have a cheese party?"

Chocolate said, "But mostly to keep control. But to do that, you need a unifying purpose, like - I don't know - _slavery_. Keep control, keep the numbers secret, but the _hope_ for females high, so they'll happily keep their dicks, and BMs, busy." Chocolate could hardly believe the mans' hubris. "It's pathetic, Laurent."

"But you bought into it." Laurent reminded him.

Laurent said to Lover, "You're too intelligent for your own good, Lover. That's the kind of information that'll get you put into solitary for the rest of your life."

"Not anymore."

Laurents face flushed red.

Lover said. "I told you. No one's getting any more of my kids but me." He looked at Chocolate, exhausted now. "Let's get out of here."

Locks and Pretty picked Lover up again and they headed Chocolate up the stairs, leaving Laurent to stew in the slow death that was his baby, the Program.

Laurent tried one last time. "Lover, your kids will die. They'll die!"

Lover listened with his own strengthening thoughts superimposed over Laurents pathetic attempts at persuasion.

Lover remembered other times, other places. It was time to go back, if not physically then in spirit. He could feel his children coming, urging, poking him in his belly to hurry up and make for them a better road, one they could walk on knowing who they were and where they might someday go. It was high time to leave. Time long passed a proper exit.

Lover moaned with pain but gratefully sucked in the smell of fresh air that assaulted his lungs when Pretty and his other mates finally found the chilly outside. There was a new world in which to re-establish who he really was. Who they all had been and still were. The sun was up and it was morning.

With hope-born freedom at his fingertips Lover yelled back down the empty stairs to a man who was a prisoner under a kingdom of his own making, "The name's _House!"_

XXX

"Lay him down here." Pretty had found a small farm house not too far from the facility. The windows were smashed and the smaller animals had begun to build nests in the cupboards and leave droppings in the corners, but it was out of the wind and they found ane interior room that had only one small window. Locks wedged a few two by fours salvaged from the surrounding yard turned weeds and blocked out as much cold air as possible. Chocolate found an old tin pot and some sticks. He broke them, filled the pot and lit a match from a small box of them provided by Whorley. Soon they had light and some semblance of heat.

Lover yelled in his birth pangs, his lungs pumping air like two billows in a blacksmiths pit.

Locks and Pretty had arranged a blanket on the floor and Lover lay on it, nude from waist down, his legs spread, blood gathered about his buttocks. His rippling abdominals had begun their undulations, pushing the sac with the living babies through a ridiculously narrow birth canal, eliciting all volumes of screams from his throat.

Chocolate and Pretty watched as Locks delivered their two babies in the shack that stunk like animal pee and moldy wheat grass.

Hours had elapsed since their escape and Lover was closer to giving birth than he had been.

"This is taking too long." Chocolate whispered.

Locks gave him a warning glare. "Keep your voice down."

Pretty silently agreed with Chocolate but said nothing. "We may have to cut the birth canal. Give them more room." He whispered to Locks.

An irritated snarl from Lover, "I can hear everything you're saying. Spare me . . the bedside manner shit!" He bit his lip as another spasm choked off any more comments.

Chocolate retrieved a small sharp knife from his pocket and held it in the flames fora minute until it was red. He pulled it from the flames and, once it cooled enough, handed it to Locks.

Pretty had torn up a clean shirt for cotton packing and gauze.

Locks positioned the knife parallel to the taut, stretched to the limit wall of the canal and made a quick slice. Lover screeched. "Some warning next time!"

"That's got it." Locks was able to reach two fingers in. "I've got to pull the first one out. Damn!" He kept up a running commentary. "There's too much blood. too slippery to get a proper grip." He withdrew his two largest fingers and slipped his little finger in the rubbery tube, very carefully feeling his way passed the soft skull of the first baby. He found the horny circle of the right eye socket and managed to hook the tip of his little finger on its edge. "There." He said. "I just have to pull a little and he oughta' slip out."

Locks, his judgment as a physician intact, felt the tiny body move quickly toward the opening of the birth canal, toward his waiting hands. He gave one more gentle tug and Lovers' first child slipped from his body. Locks quickly tied off and snipped the umbilical cord, an un-usually short affair. Then went to work on the second baby inching his way toward the raw air of his fathers' cold world.

Lovers' abdominal worked until they ached and cramped. Still they undulated and pushed on his birth wall, the internal structure of the sac separating from the wombs' grip on his blood rich muscles. When the second baby slipped through without a pause, the remainder of the fluid and the birth sac itself followed, squeezing out in a bloody mess of translucent amniotic slicked skin. Locks was reminded of a water balloon, once filled and stretched to the limit, which had finally burst.

Once Locks has tied and cut the second cord, Pretty quickly took the babies, just over a pound each, cleaning them off with water he had warmed in the fire. "Hey, look." He said.

All eyes turned to look.

Pretty held one up. "Soft brown skin and brown eyes." Then he held the other. "Dark purple eyes and white as chicken." He cleared their teeny nostrils with a twisted, pointed piece of wet cotton then checked their breathing and heart-rate. "Both healthy." Pretty reported. "Colors are good. Eyes clear." He touched the top of each babies' foot. "Blood return normal."

Pretty gently offered each baby to the sire who clearly was its father. Both Chocolate and Locks each held for a moment the child that was so obviously of their own bodies. Pretty watched for a moment then turned his attention to Lover. He was unconscious. "Lover's still bleeding."

Locks and Chocolate both wrapped the babies in warm blankets and lay them near enough to the fire for warmth but not so near that a spark might catch the material.

Pretty wiped the still seeping blood from between Lovers' legs. He packed in as much balled cotton shirt as he could press into the birth canal opening. He considered stitching the canal but the risk for infection was greater than the good it might do. He hoped the birth wound would heal over as quickly as it had last time.

"How is he?" Chocolate asked, unable to keep his eyes of the babies for more than a few seconds at a time.

"I don't know." Pretty said. "Okay, I think. He needs lots of rest. He's getting too old for this."

-

-

-

Lover sat up, his back against rough, cold plaster, sticky cotton rags between his legs, his muscles cramping, his back aching. But he held paradise.

Cradling his newborns in two strong arms, nothing in the room was uncomfortable or dreary. That was impossible. Careful to keep his expression as neutral as possible - the dopey grins on the face of Pretty and Locks as they settled down next to each other for a nights rest were a constant irritant - he wanted to sit up for a while despite Chocolates' insistence he get more rest.

"In a few minutes." Lover said. He wanted to look at his kids some more.

There were so dramatically delicate looking. So precise yet so preciously _small_ he could hold both of them together, their plum sized heads in the crook of his arm, their bodies nestled side by side on his lap - with room to spare.

These two, his children, would live as _people_. The embryos he had squeezed out before in Laurents' Family Factory, would have been destined only for a state run life with no true parents, no destiny of their own, just a label applied to them, like stickers on a nick-nack: Manufactured by the Authority of the State. Dead was better and though he had wept at their dying, he had also vowed to never regret it.

Such a fate would not be for these ones. His babies would grow knowing what it was to be human. Maybe someday learning and coming to understand, even accept the terrible but unquestionably affordable price that their fathers, and now unknown siblings forever lost, had paid for their freedom.

Sires, Donors, BMs, Babies. . . _human beings_. No one else can live for another. No one can choose anothers' name or future. Names matter. _Who you are matters. _

"You're free." Lover said to his incredible small baby boys. He whispered the next word softly so no one could hear but them. So he could share something totally his own with them, a shining portion of his new daddys' nervous, ruby-red heart. "_My_ babies."

-

-

-

Whorleys' directions got them cars, fuel and hope. With a destination of their choosing, they gathering what extra food they could find with brief stops at two or three abandoned farms, and made fast for a road west, traveling without a single glance back or to a past that no longer mattered.

-

-

-

Wilson steered the car West-North-West toward a broad skyline. It was cold but the road was clear and the end of something and the beginning.

Prett -_Wilson_ was feeling philosophical, for years a state of mind in which he had not indulged. Philosophical musing only existed in the elite arenas of life, where the rich and well fed slept on divans and tossed ideas back and forth like peeled grapes. In the struggle to simply survive day to day, the only religion is hope and that god had left the country long ago.

"Maybe the world didn't really stop or end. Maybe it just paused for a while?" Wilson said suddenly, the rhetoric breaking through the calm hum of the engine. "Or slowed down." The new idea filling the warm quiet of the sedan.

Lov - _House_ - real names now because once again they were in life and familiar with love and the trust of each other and self - every man believing in a future for the person he used to be and the children he had shared in making.

Wilson saw tiny flash images of the House of the Old Life poking his disdainful amusement into the New. The face House turned his way was that man. And also this man. Both present and accounted for. "Right. Everything dies, Wilson. Not everything dies then comes back to life, and the good guys win."

"Jordan would disagree with you."

At hearing his sons' name House looked back over his shoulder to the sleeping baby of three months wrapped in a warm blanket, his tiny mouth open, his Aussie-sharp nose thrust into the world with a determination that only it currently understood he would soon need. House knew behind his black lashes were eyes as blue as a Robins' egg. Eyes like his and he wondered for the hundredth time what sort of future they could make for him in a world still holding him at arms length.

Someday Jordan would be a blue-eyed man, maybe an immune. Or maybe at the age of seven or eight months, when his natural immunities given to him from his own body would grind to a halt and expose him to mutant contagions that gave no consideration to any particular species, or one that hungered only for humans of the female side, and his son would sicken and die.

"Jordan won't have an opinion until he learns his alphabet." House said.

In the car directly in front of them rode Chase - who had abandoned his hated "Locks" name as soon as possible - with Eric-Chocolate-Foreman at the wheel. Reid, their boy, his and Foremans', also of three months, was cradled in the arms of Chase, sucking from a bottle. Reid had Foremans' eyes and nose and acorn colored skin. Reid and Jordan, his non-identical twins, their children born of a world smelling like death, now riding to life over the next hill. Life smelled fine.

In the trunk of each vehicle were four ten gallon jugs of fuel. Enough to take them as far as they would need. Eight hundred miles would do. An old song started playing in Lovers' head: _Lord I'm one, Lord I'm two . . _

XXX

The fourth night on the road, they found a far better house in which to spend the night. Comfortable beds, if a bit musty. And even a few dried packages of soup noodles which they ate like souls starved of normal.

Wilson even heated water for the deep, old fashioned tub.

Lover watched him climb the carpeted stairs.

Chase noticed it first. "Wilson's looking a bit down."

Lover sighed. "I'll go see." He left the care of his sons in the hands of their daddies in the living room where it was warmest and climbed the stairs after Wilson.

He found him undressing in the bathroom. "What's up? You're moping around like a dog who can't remember where he left his favorite bone."

Wilson climbed into the tub. "Nothing."

Lover sat on the toilet seat and stared at his favorite mate with lowered brows full of gentle scorn. "Bullshit."

Wilson took some soap and started to lather up his arms and chest. "I love our kids."

House nodded. "I know. And you're depressed about it?"

"No. They're wonderful but, . ."

"What?"

"Neither of them . . look like _me." _

House let air out between pursed lips.

"This is about you wanting a little copy of yourself running around?"

"I don't see anything wrong in that."

"There isn't."

"So?"

"So _what?"_

"So, . . that's all that's wrong I guess."

House leaned over, scooped up a palm full of soapy water and splashed it on him. "You idiot."

"What? Just because I want a son who looks like me?"

"No. Because you're too much of a sulking moron to ask."

"I don't know how to ask that. I mean, it would mean you'd have to-"

"-Yeah, I know. Another pregnancy. What makes you think I'm done with it?"

Wilson stared at him, disbelievingly. "But your health. Whorley said-"

"-Whorley could be wrong. I survived giving birth in a freezing shack. By the time we get to where we're actually going, I'll be having the kid in a nice warm, comf'y bed with you three waiting on me hand and foot." With raised eyebrows House effected a thoroughly self-satisfied and devilish grin. "I can't find a thing wrong with that picture."

"You mean?'

House stripped off his tee-shirt. "Shove your ass to the end. We're doing it - free style."

-

-

-

Wilson soaped up his powerful erection and entered House in a single mind-bending stroke. "Oh, god, House. Baby . . .I fucking love you so much. So much. . ."

House moved his cheeks forward and back, slowly, luxuriously rocking on Wilsons' hard sex. The chemical surge through his body told him to stay exactly here, connected to Wilson forever. To encourage and entice, milk and swallow every drop of him.

Wilson slid warm wet fingers around Houses' waist, linking them together over his abdomen where he knew in just a few days time, the skin would push out, tighten and grow lovely warm and pink - swell to a mound under which his own child would form. Wilson kept that image firmly central in his vision as he fucked him harder and harder.

"Stay with me tonight." Wilson whispered in his ear. "Sleep with me so I can do this to you again. I want you so pregnant that you'll never forget it was me, my cock that changed you. I want you to feel me inside you every minute the rest of your life."

House swam in a bath of sexual chemistry and lolled his head back to rest on Wilsons' warm shoulder. "Anything." He whimpered. "For you, anything at all."

Wilson took House by his hips and rocked him faster and faster, the water sloshing back and forth, wetting the floor. Neither minded the clean-up after. What was a little spill compared to this?

Wilson whispered sweet somethings into his lovers' ear, saying them over and over so his body would hear, and his cock and his sweet belly too, so that his thirsty flesh would comprehend and explode with his own life. "Do you like it when I fuck you?"

House was breathing heavy and hard, blind with desire and the want to please and give over everything he was to this man. Every vessel, twitch and inch of skin.

"Ye-ye-s-s-s. . ."

"Do you _want_ me to fuck you harder? Burst inside you? Because _I _want to. I'm _going_ to."

"Puh-please - oh please . . ."

"Mmmmmmm. You'll let me do this to you all night, won't you?'

House answered with a moan that filled the room, bouncing off the walls and back to Wilsons' ears like ocean waves against ancient rocks, wearing them down, crumbling their defenses to rubble, making Wilson groan like a beast and pulled House violently against his own pelvis over and over until he came, shooting into him, filling him to the limit. Wilson held on to him and rocked with his body like House was the only life left in the Universe and that life was his and his alone to cherish and love and fuck and fuck again until the stars fell.

"You may belong to others too, but you're mine first and always." Wilson whispered into his exhausted, and pregnant, mates ear as he slowed his cock thrusts to something more controlled (controlled like the ready strike of a cobra is controlled). In minutes he would be hard and again ready to empty his cum into Houses' inviting hole that hungered for him. _I'll feed you starving lover_. _I'll fuck you so full and so good! _All he had to do was remain inside Houses' warm tight place and wait.

"Ah - _oh!_ - always Wilson." House, physically hypnotized by his mates sweet sweat and deliciously demanding hard cock, answered honestly. "Always. Always-always-always . . .Just ask it - just say it . . .just . . . _f-fuck_ me!"

Chemical romance, but simple truth.

XXX

House looked down at his distended belly. In his body, growing at an accelerated rate, was at least one more life waiting to join the convoy. He touched his melon-sized pregnancy and Wilson, seeing him doing it, took his left hand off the wheel, reached over and had a feel of his own.

Wilson loved the look of pregnancy on House. He was giddy that his friend and mate now carried a baby just for him. At last, _his_ child was in there. Finally. His and Houses'.

What would this have felt like back when the world was full and content? Normal was the only way he could describe it. Not normal as boring or expected or anything one would usually have after a man makes love to a man. But normal as this is the way it is now. Maybe the way it will be for a long time.

Nothing wrong with that, Wilson thought, the philosophical Muse tickling his thoughts once more. It felt good to hear his own name again in his head. It felt right as rain.

Other names circled in his mind like a carousel of horses and harts. Possibilities. New little people soon to be born needed names too. "Mathias." Wilson said to House. "If he looks more like me, can we call him Mathias?"

"Sounds okay. A bit Jewish. What if he looks more like me? - lucky kid! I want to name one kid at least. You three keep beating me to the punch."

"Yes, but, well, _you_ get to carry them."

"And you three get to _make_ them by fucking me like a trio of Great Horny _Toads."_

"Oh, that's charming, dad. I hope you don't talk that way around our kids when they're old enough to understand."

"Jordan's gonna' be just like me. He'll thank me for it later." House suggested, "Tell you what, if he looks more like you, you can name him. If he looks more like me, I name him. Deal?"

"Who decides which he looks like more? You'll claim he looks like you even if he has my strong nose and full head of healthy hair."

"_"Strong"_ nose. Right. Your Mom lied to you. Face it, Pinochio."

"But it never gets longer, does it? Is it a deal?"

"Fine. Deal." House already had one picked out: Stevie or Jimmy.

He intended to suggest, and insist, on Elvis or Enlgelbert when the time came, just to screw with Wilson for a while.

Maybe he'd call their newest son Jimmy Rod or James Georgie. Something that was Rock or Blues related anyway. No Polka or Pop names and no mushy, stupid, hideous nick-names like Junior, Sonny or Pally - _'cause if that happens some local daddy'll __**die!**_

"Did you guys settled on a place?" House was referring to the last decision made before they left the last old shack near New Jersey. New but old, left behind.

Old but new straight on until morning.

House let his mates choose where to go. At the time when they were packing, storing and pilfering up for the trip, he was busy with two kids and being pregnant again, thanks to Wilsons' chemical persuasion. Mostly chemical. Some of it was in the eyes and the simpering smile. _Not_ the nose.

"Probably Northern Montana or Southern Alberta. Some place where there are few people, lots of animals and trees, and plenty of abandoned farms."

"If you think I'm planting a garden and milking cows, you're as crazy as I know you are."

Wilson smiled. "You just keep having the babies."

"Looks like my work's cut out for me." House said but he felt a flutter of anticipation from his body. It was more excited than he was. "Damn chemicals." He muttered.

"Hm?'

"Nothing."

Wilson saw the microscopic smile inch across Houses' lips. "Don't worry. We'll help you with that - pregnancy I mean. _Lots _of help."

"Sluts."

Another hill to pass over, another curve in the road ahead. Wilson steered with the care and will of one among the few left standing. House was right about one

thing. Everybody dies.

But first they live.

XXX

END

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NOTE: I might do a sequel if I can come up with a decent plot. Thanks for reading! 8^)


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